Ex-Granby football star Bell kicked off Penn State team after arrest

Former Granby High football star Chris Bell has played his last game for Penn State.

Bell, a high school All-American in his days with the Comets, has been released from the team after Penn State campus police arrested him Monday evening for threatening a teammate with a knife in the team dining hall. Bell reportedly had to be “disarmed” by assistant coaches, police said.

According to the Penn State campus police criminal complaint and a story that appeared in the Centre Daily Times, Bell entered the dining hall, approached teammate Devon Still and threatened to stab him. Several coaches intervened and were able to restrain Bell. The player was not hurt.

Bell voluntarily turned himself into the Penn State police later Monday evening.

Bell, 21, was arraigned before District Judge Daniel Hoffman on numerous charges, including terroristic threats, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, disorderly conduct and harassment. He was jailed, with bail set at $50,000.

This apparently was the last straw for Penn State football coaches, who weren’t available for comment. But a statement issued by the Penn State athletic department said: “Chris Bell, who had been previously suspended from team activities, is permanently removed from the team and will not be reconsidered to be a part of the team in the future.”

The statement, sent by staff assistant Shirley Irvin, said this decision was made in connection with his most recent event. He had been suspended from the team after he was mentioned in connection with an assault in October.

This all comes as a shock to Dave Hudak, Bell’s former high school coach.

Hudak said he got a phone call early Tuesday from an assistant coach, informing him that Bell “got into some sort of trouble.”

It wasn’t until later that day that Hudak realized the seriousness of the charges.

“This is just both shocking and disappointing,” Hudak said. “I had talked to him a couple of weeks ago during his spring break, and I was planning on seeing him on the campus this weekend. We’re going up there for a football camp, and I was going to take him out.”

Hudak said he had kept up on Bell’s progress with phone calls to the coaches.

“I wanted to see if he was doing the things that he was supposed to,” Hudak said, “and it sounded like things were getting back on track.”

Bell — a 6-foot-2, 210-pound sophomore — arrived at Penn State with much promise. He was highly recruited out of Granby because of his speed and play-making abilities. He followed in the footsteps of former Granby standouts Levi Brown and Anthony King by going to Penn State, but stardom never came his way.

This past season he played in 12 games and finished with seven receptions for 143 yards.

But his name wasn’t listed on the 2008 spring roster.

“It’s very unfortunate,” Hudak said. “He was the third player we had go there, and for one reason or another things just didn’t work out. “That’s where the shock part comes in because I could never see him doing anything like this. But without really knowing the situation or what happened or what drove him to do something like that, there has to be a story behind the story.

“Everybody makes mistakes, and some are worse than others, but I’m still with him, and I’ll help him in any way I can.”