National Football Foundation

A quarterback from Clemson University, Thomas Bell Jr. stands six feet tall and weighs in at 185 pounds. Compiling a 3.85 GPA, he was on the honors list for seven straight semesters, and he was a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Phi Eta Sigma and Sigma Tau Epsilon. Bell won the Air Force ROTC Scholastic Award, and he served as alternate captain of the football team. He started at quarterback for three seasons for the Tigers, and he also played defensive safety.

Bell’s other campus activities included Blue Key, Tiger Brotherhood, Delta Kappa Alpha and Block “C.” He served as president of his sophomore and junior classes, director of the student Sunday school department and served as student body president. In 1964, Bell was named to the Academic All-ACC team, and he led the Tigers defense with five interceptions. On the offensive side, he threw for 309 yards and three touchdowns in three seasons. Bell also ran for 62 yards with a score in that span.

After graduating summa cum laude from Clemson, he enrolled in The Medical University of South Carolina, graduating in 1969. After a rotating internship in 1969-70 at Charlotte Memorial Hospital, Dr. Bell entered the U.S. Air Force where he served and completed his family medicine training. In 1972, Bell returned to his hometown of Hartsville, S.C., to begin practice, which he continues to this day.

Active in the community, Bell was on the Hartsville City Council for 10 years, a Deacon at First Baptist Church in Hartsville, a YMCA founding director and a State Vocational Rehabilitation board member for 17 years for the 6th District of South Carolina. Bell was President of the South Carolina Academy of Family Medicine in 1988 and Board Chairman in 1989. He recently served as president of The MUSC Alumni Association. He is active working in The Free Medical Clinic of Darlington County, and he has served the indigent patients in six medical clinics in Trinidad, West Indies with his church for six years.