Bobby Bell lives on a golf course these days. He used to own a barbecue chain. And the room literally labeled "Man Cave" in his home provides a panorama of a remarkable journey enabled by football, force of will and a magnetic personality.
Each of those aspects of his life speak to the essential scope of the story of the Chiefs legend, both on the cusp of his 80th birthday (June 17) and at a time it's worth reflecting on sports and race in our country.
Bell grew up in Shelby, North Carolina, where he'd cut grass at the country club and wonder why he wasn't allowed to play golf there ... and where he worked in the kitchen at Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge but couldn't eat in the restaurant ... and started his high school football career playing six-man ball since his segregated school didn't have the resources of the nearby white school.
"People say, 'Come on, did you live through this?' " Bell said.
Even as he rode in the back of buses, drank from "colored" water fountains and knew to avoid "white" bathrooms, nothing quite brought it all into focus like the day a white friend he was playing with said, "Let's go to the movie show."
Bell ran home to ask his mother if he could go. When she asked who he'd go with, and he told her, she said he couldn't.
"And she had to explain it to me," he said.
