University of North Carolina Athletics
Nikita Bell: Better Than Good
March 19, 2005 | Women's Basketball
March 19, 2005
By Danielle Appelman
UNC Athletic Communications
More than 1,000 point, 300 steals and 500 rebounds ago, Nikita Bell was just an incoming freshman from Columbus, Ga. Four years later, Bell is coming closer and closer to playing her final college basketball game in a Tar Heel uniform.
"I really don't think about it too much," she says of playing her final game. "I'm going to try not to get too emotional and just be ready for the game and smile. And play hard. But especially my last, last game-if we can win the ACC Tournament and get to the Final Four and play for a national championship, it would be...." As her mind fast-forwards to that possible last game, Bell just shakes her head and smiles, not even able to complete the unimaginable sentence.
Bell has had one of those college careers most players only dream about. As a the 2005 Atlantic Coast Conference Defensive Player of the Year, a member of the 2005 ACC All-Tournament team and presently fourth on UNC's career steals list, it was what happened on January 17 of this year that perhaps most surprised her.
In a game against Miami, Bell scored her 1,000th career point. "It wasn't like I was aiming for it," Bell says with a shy grin. "I didn't even know until I was told at the NC State game that I only needed three more points, and here comes the Miami game and I can't make a lay-up. And I finally end up getting it, and I came out of the game and everyone gave me a standing ovation. So it was cool. Everyone knows me as a defensive player, but they told me I was only the 22nd person to do so that was really good."
"Good" is hardly the word most would use when describing such a monumental mark, but that is Bell's style. For Nikita Bell, it is not so much the things that she has accomplished that matter to her most, but how much she has learned while doing so. And even now, only a handful of games away from taking off her jersey for the last time, she realizes that there is more that she can learn and achieve.
"Here, I'm just playing my role a lot," she says. "I don't try to go out and do too much extra, but there's more I know I can do. I feel like I'm going to start doing more now because my teammates need me to do more than just be a defensive stopper. I want to be able to be on both ends and play both ends - and I can."
It is this mix of maturity, humility and determination that makes Bell such an indispensable leader for the Tar Heels. And the team has former player Coretta Brown to thank for these qualities. "I learned a lot from Coretta," Bell says. "When I was a freshman and sophomore, I never understood why she did the things she did and said the stuff she said. It's funny, because know I'm saying the same exact things and acting the exact same way. You learn a lot and you go through a whole lot. I watched how she worked hard even when she was hurt and ... just everything about her. And I tried to pick that up, and that's what changed me a lot, becoming more mentally tough."
Therefore, it's no surprise that it is not the practices or the games that Nikita Bell will miss the most when she graduates, but the little moments in between with her teammates and coaches. As Bell attempts to express just how much her teammates mean to her, she looks away, almost unable to think of there being a time when she will be without them. "You know, it's like how people always say 'You'll miss it when you're gone,'" she says. "I'm not sure if I'll miss school and all, but I'll miss my teammates and the moments, all the laughing and jokes, that's what I'm going to really miss."
When asked if she could go back in time and do anything differently in her career, Bell just smiles and shakes her head. She realizes that without all the ups and downs, she would not be where she is today. "If I could do it again, I would," she says. "I understand now why the coaches did what they did, why we had to do what we did. And I would just take more advantage of it, all that stuff, if I could do it again. But I can't so that's how you learn things in life. And I improved every year, so that's good."
Once more, Bell fails to do herself justice by using the word "good." After leading the team in steals for three consecutive years, finishing among the program's top five players in career steals and top 20 players in career scoring, it would be a bit of an understatement to say her career at UNC has been only "good." Her connotation of what is good is what most people would define as great.
When Bell exits the playing floor for the last time, it is not her statistics she wants people to remember her by, but rather her unrelentingly determination and drive, with which she approached every single moment. "I always work hard, whatever I did," she says. "I don't mind working hard and having to work to the top. I'm willing to work to get that success." It is this exact self-discipline and work ethic that will continue to make Nikita Bell a huge success on the court and an even bigger one off of it.
