University of North Carolina Athletics
Corey Bell Believes He Can Be a Champion
January 22, 2001 | Wrestling
Jan. 22, 2001
By Tameka Rish, TarHeelBlue.com
Imagine going to class for 2,700 days without missing once. Never too tired, not even one sick day. For UNC wrestler Corey Bell, it is not hard to imagine at all. Bell, a senior, has had perfect attendance since kindergarten.
Most people would attribute this to dedication and determination, but not Bell. He says that he is just gullible.
That's right, gullible.
"I believe anything that anybody tells me," Bell says. "If Coach (Bill) Lam tells me I'm gonna be national champion, I'm gonna be national champion. My mom told me to never miss class, so I didn't miss class."
Bell learned early that if he was going to be successful he could not cut any corners--or classes. He gives his mom and household chores credit for his discipline.
"My mom is real strict when it comes to cleanliness," Bell says. "She really looks at corners and cracks. Without that preparation I would have never been able to lose weight or wrestle because wrestling is about fine detail."
Bell may be a hard worker, but he still believes in having fun. "Coach Lam and all of my coaches before have said that if you are ever doing something, try to make it fun because you get tired of doing the same thing over and over again."
Take making weight, something all wrestlers are familiar with, but something few actually enjoy doing. Bell combined his love for music with his need for weight loss and developed a plan.
"I began to realize when I'm dancing, I'm sweating pretty good," Bell says. "I thought, `Why don't I take this to another level?' I will come in a room turn on the stereo and do all the dance moves I know. If I know that there's a party going on somewhere, I will go to the party and do as much dancing as I can.
"It's so funny because whenever I would go to a party everybody would be dressed up nice. But I would have on my sweats, two or three sweaters and tape around my waist and wrists. People would be supporting me and dancing with me the whole time."
Because of Bell's love for dancing he is known around campus as the "percolator." He says he knows five or six versions of the percolator, a popular dance step, and that he's even gotten Coach Lam to participate.
As much as Bell likes to have fun, he also knows when it's time to be serious. At Jordan High School in Durham, he would go through a charismatic routine before each match. He would pump himself and teammates up with imaginary objects. A student of Mortal Combat and Street Fighter movies, he would often pretend to break pieces of wood or double-dutch without a rope.
"My coach said that when it's time for the state championship I want you to get down to business," Bell says. "I said that if he let me do what I did all year long, then when it is time for state, I'm coming with a suit and a briefcase."
He wasn't kidding. Bell was all business--literally. "I showed up with a three-piece suit on. I go in to weigh in and everybody in the weight room was still cutting weight. I'm just standing there with a briefcase. It took me forever to take it off and then fold it up nice and neat. I made weight and then put it back on."
The result? Bell was a two-time state champion at Jordan.
Although Bell is known for his ability to talk, it is his ability to listen that causes him to succeed. He puts total confidence in Lam. If he loses a match early on it does not upset him as bad because Lam has told him that he will be ready when tournament time comes.
"This is my last year and he (Lam) says that he believes I can be an All-American, and I'm going to believe it. If I lose all my matches up until then I'm still gonna believe him. I've got faith in him."
Until then, Bell says that he plans to work hard and learn from his mistakes. By tournament time, Coach Lam promises, Bell will be ready.
