Demetrius Bell
Encyclopedia
Demetrius Carte Bell is an American football
offensive tackle for the Buffalo Bills
of the National Football League
. He is the son of former basketball
star Karl Malone
.
to be Karl Malone
, a former star player in the National Basketball Association
and a fellow native of Summerfield. Malone and Demetrius Bell have reportedly spoken on only one occasion.
As a young teenager, Bell played more softball than he did Malone's sport of basketball. He did not play organized football at all during that time. Eventually, during high school, he took up basketball and played well enough to receive a scholarship to Northwestern State University
, where he played
in 88 games over the course of the 2003-04, 2004–05 and 2006-07 seasons. Bell was one of only four NCAA athletes to play both basketball and football in Division I in 2007. After the 2006-07 season, he decided to give up basketball to concentrate on his development in football.
the basketball season and began playing for the school's football team. He was initially placed in the position of defensive end
. The following year, injuries struck the team's offensive line, and he was moved to the left tackle position. He earned second-team All-Louisiana honors that season.
Bell made a bigger name for himself in his senior season of 2007, having focused solely on football. Remaining on the offensive line, he was named an All-Louisiana and an All-Southland Conference
first-teamer. He also became an Associated Press All-American.
Bell graduated from Northwestern State in 2008 and was drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the seventh round of the 2008 NFL Draft
. The Bills were encouraged by his raw skills, but saw him as a longer-term project, given his inexperience in having played organized football for only three seasons at that point. However, the team chose to place him on their active roster, rather than assigning him to their practice squad, where he could potentially have been signed away by another team. Consistent with their view of him as a work in progress, Bell was not activated for play in any of the Bills' regular season games in 2008.
In 2009, citing the quality of Bell's performance in the Bills' off-season and pre-season training camps that year, then-Bills head coach Dick Jauron
installed Bell as the team's starting left tackle for the 2009 regular season
. After earning mixed reviews over the first half of the campaign, including an extremely high number of penalties against him, Bell's year came to a disappointing conclusion when he suffered what would prove to be a season-ending knee injury in a Week 10 game against the Tennessee Titans
.
After the 2010 NFL Draft
, Bills head coach Chan Gailey
indicated an expectation that Bell, recovered from the injury, would resume his role as the team's starting left tackle entering the 2010 season.
against Malone reportedly pointed to an over 99 percent probability that Bell's father was either Malone or a brother of Malone. Malone initially refused to respond to the lawsuit, but eventually reached an out-of-court settlement with the Bell family over the issue. The Bells received a single lump sum payment of a confidential amount, with no on-going child support
for Demetrius. In speaking later about the settlement, Malone's attorney asserted that it had not included an official court determination of paternity, and noted that Malone "had a lot of brothers".
Although Malone was 20 years old at the time that the 13-year old Gloria Bell was impregnated, she said that her family chose not to pursue criminal charges
against Malone over the relationship. According to Bell, with Malone being a neighbor — Summerfield's population is only a few hundred — her family did not wish to see him jailed, especially since he would then be unable to provide any support for Demetrius at all.
In 2008, The Buffalo News
published a story about Demetrius Bell that included the claim that he didn't know who his father was until after he graduated from high school. However, in a 1998 article in The Salt Lake Tribune
, when Bell was 14 years old, his mother spoke of his shying away from anything to do with Malone because his feelings were hurt by Malone's refusal to acknowledge him.
According to Bell, he has spoken to Malone on one occasion, when Bell was 18 years old. Bell reported that Malone told him that he would have to make his way on his own, as it was too late for the two men to have a father-son relationship.
In 1989, Malone was also sued over the paternity of twins Daryl and Cheryl Ford
, also of Summerfield, Louisiana. Similarly to the case with Bell, the Ford twins' case was ultimately settled out of court and without Malone offering confirmation that he was the twins' father. In 1998, after knowledge of the two paternity suits became public, Malone did acknowledge his paternity of the Ford twins, and he has since maintained an active relationship with them. Despite the on-going estrangement between Bell and Malone, Bell has reported that he is very close to the Ford twins, who acknowledge him as their brother.
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
offensive tackle for the Buffalo Bills
Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills are a professional football team based in Buffalo, New York. They are currently members of the East Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
of the National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
. He is the son of former basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
star Karl Malone
Karl Malone
Karl Anthony Malone , nicknamed "The Mailman", is a retired American professional basketball power forward who spent the majority of his career with the Utah Jazz of the National Basketball Association . Malone spent his first 18 seasons with the Jazz and formed a formidable duo with his teammate...
.
Early life
Demetrius Bell was born in 1984 to 13-year-old Gloria Bell of Summerfield, Louisiana. Demetrius's father has been adjudicatedAdjudication
Adjudication is the legal process by which an arbiter or judge reviews evidence and argumentation including legal reasoning set forth by opposing parties or litigants to come to a decision which determines rights and obligations between the parties involved....
to be Karl Malone
Karl Malone
Karl Anthony Malone , nicknamed "The Mailman", is a retired American professional basketball power forward who spent the majority of his career with the Utah Jazz of the National Basketball Association . Malone spent his first 18 seasons with the Jazz and formed a formidable duo with his teammate...
, a former star player in the National Basketball Association
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
and a fellow native of Summerfield. Malone and Demetrius Bell have reportedly spoken on only one occasion.
As a young teenager, Bell played more softball than he did Malone's sport of basketball. He did not play organized football at all during that time. Eventually, during high school, he took up basketball and played well enough to receive a scholarship to Northwestern State University
Northwestern State University
Northwestern State University, known as NSU, is a four-year public university primarily situated in Natchitoches, Louisiana, with a nursing campus in Shreveport and general campuses in Leesville/Fort Polk and Alexandria. It is a part of the University of Louisiana System.NSU was founded in 1884 as...
, where he played
Northwestern State Demons
The Northwestern State University athletic teams go by the Demons, with women's athletic teams generally called the Lady Demons, and its mascot is Vic the Demon. Once a member of the celebrated SIAA conference, the school now competes in the Southland Conference....
in 88 games over the course of the 2003-04, 2004–05 and 2006-07 seasons. Bell was one of only four NCAA athletes to play both basketball and football in Division I in 2007. After the 2006-07 season, he decided to give up basketball to concentrate on his development in football.
Football career
Bell's high school had not fielded a football team, so prior to his attending Northwestern State, he had never played organized football. In the fall of 2005, he red-shirtedRedshirt (college sports)
Redshirt is a term used in American college athletics that refers to a delay or suspension of an athlete's participation in order to lengthen his or her period of eligibility...
the basketball season and began playing for the school's football team. He was initially placed in the position of defensive end
Defensive end
Defensive end is the name of a defensive position in the sport of American and Canadian football.This position has designated the players at each end of the defensive line, but changes in formations have substantially changed how the position is played over the years...
. The following year, injuries struck the team's offensive line, and he was moved to the left tackle position. He earned second-team All-Louisiana honors that season.
Bell made a bigger name for himself in his senior season of 2007, having focused solely on football. Remaining on the offensive line, he was named an All-Louisiana and an All-Southland Conference
Southland Conference
The Southland Conference is a college athletic conference which operates in the south central United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I for all sports; for football, it participates in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision...
first-teamer. He also became an Associated Press All-American.
Bell graduated from Northwestern State in 2008 and was drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the seventh round of the 2008 NFL Draft
2008 NFL Draft
The 2008 NFL Draft took place at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on April 26 and April 27, 2008. For the 29th consecutive year, ESPN televised the draft; the NFL Network also broadcast the event, its third year doing so...
. The Bills were encouraged by his raw skills, but saw him as a longer-term project, given his inexperience in having played organized football for only three seasons at that point. However, the team chose to place him on their active roster, rather than assigning him to their practice squad, where he could potentially have been signed away by another team. Consistent with their view of him as a work in progress, Bell was not activated for play in any of the Bills' regular season games in 2008.
In 2009, citing the quality of Bell's performance in the Bills' off-season and pre-season training camps that year, then-Bills head coach Dick Jauron
Dick Jauron
Richard Manuel Jauron is the defensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League. He was the head coach for the Buffalo Bills from 2006 until November 2009. Jauron has previously held head coaching positions with the Chicago Bears and, on an interim basis, with the...
installed Bell as the team's starting left tackle for the 2009 regular season
2009 Buffalo Bills season
The 2009 Buffalo Bills season was the 50th Professional Football season for the original American Football League team, and its 40th in the NFL...
. After earning mixed reviews over the first half of the campaign, including an extremely high number of penalties against him, Bell's year came to a disappointing conclusion when he suffered what would prove to be a season-ending knee injury in a Week 10 game against the Tennessee Titans
Tennessee Titans
The Tennessee Titans are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. They are members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Previously known as the Houston Oilers, the team began play in 1960 as a charter...
.
After the 2010 NFL Draft
2010 NFL Draft
The 2010 NFL Draft was the 75th annual meeting of National Football League franchises to select newly eligible football players. Unlike previous years, the 2010 draft took place over three days, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, with the first round on Thursday, April 22, 2010, at 7:30 pm...
, Bills head coach Chan Gailey
Chan Gailey
Thomas Chandler "Chan" Gailey, Jr. is an American professional and college football coach. Gailey is the current head coach of the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League ; he was formerly the head coach of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets college football...
indicated an expectation that Bell, recovered from the injury, would resume his role as the team's starting left tackle entering the 2010 season.
Relationship with Karl Malone
Karl Malone has never offered public confirmation that he is the father of Demetrius Bell. However, laboratory blood tests prepared for the Bell family's 1986 paternity lawsuitPaternity (law)
In law, paternity is the legal acknowledgment of the parental relationship between a man and a child usually based on several factors.At common law, a child born to the wife during a marriage is the husband's child under the "presumption of legitimacy", and the husband is assigned complete rights,...
against Malone reportedly pointed to an over 99 percent probability that Bell's father was either Malone or a brother of Malone. Malone initially refused to respond to the lawsuit, but eventually reached an out-of-court settlement with the Bell family over the issue. The Bells received a single lump sum payment of a confidential amount, with no on-going child support
Child support
In family law and public policy, child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child following the end of a marriage or other relationship...
for Demetrius. In speaking later about the settlement, Malone's attorney asserted that it had not included an official court determination of paternity, and noted that Malone "had a lot of brothers".
Although Malone was 20 years old at the time that the 13-year old Gloria Bell was impregnated, she said that her family chose not to pursue criminal charges
Statutory rape
The phrase statutory rape is a term used in some legal jurisdictions to describe sexual activities where one participant is below the age required to legally consent to the behavior...
against Malone over the relationship. According to Bell, with Malone being a neighbor — Summerfield's population is only a few hundred — her family did not wish to see him jailed, especially since he would then be unable to provide any support for Demetrius at all.
In 2008, The Buffalo News
The Buffalo News
The Buffalo News is the primary newspaper of the Buffalo – Niagara Falls metropolitan area, and the area's only daily newspaper. It is the only newspaper owned by Berkshire Hathaway.-History:...
published a story about Demetrius Bell that included the claim that he didn't know who his father was until after he graduated from high school. However, in a 1998 article in The Salt Lake Tribune
The Salt Lake Tribune
The Salt Lake Tribune is the largest-circulated daily newspaper in the U.S. city of Salt Lake City. It is distributed by Newspaper Agency Corporation, which also distributes the Deseret News. The Tribune — or "Trib," as it is locally known — is currently owned by the Denver-based MediaNews Group....
, when Bell was 14 years old, his mother spoke of his shying away from anything to do with Malone because his feelings were hurt by Malone's refusal to acknowledge him.
According to Bell, he has spoken to Malone on one occasion, when Bell was 18 years old. Bell reported that Malone told him that he would have to make his way on his own, as it was too late for the two men to have a father-son relationship.
In 1989, Malone was also sued over the paternity of twins Daryl and Cheryl Ford
Cheryl Ford
Cheryl Ford is a professional basketball player in the WNBA.-Personal information:Cheryl Ford is the daughter of Bonita Ford and former NBA player Karl Malone.-High school:...
, also of Summerfield, Louisiana. Similarly to the case with Bell, the Ford twins' case was ultimately settled out of court and without Malone offering confirmation that he was the twins' father. In 1998, after knowledge of the two paternity suits became public, Malone did acknowledge his paternity of the Ford twins, and he has since maintained an active relationship with them. Despite the on-going estrangement between Bell and Malone, Bell has reported that he is very close to the Ford twins, who acknowledge him as their brother.