Matty Bell
American football player (1899-1983)
William Madison "Matty" Bell (February 22, 1899, June 30, 1983) was an American football player, coach of football and basketball, and college athletics administrator. He played for Centre, captain of its 1918 team. He served as the head football coach at the Haskell Institute (1920-1921), Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin (1922), Texas Christian University (1923-1928), Texas A&M University (1929-1933), and Southern Methodist University (1935-1941, 1945-1949), compiling a career college football record of 147-88-17. His 1935 SMU Mustangs, which have been recognized as a national champion, went 12-0 in the regular season before losing to Stanford in the Rose Bowl. Bell was also the head basketball coach at Texas Christian for six seasons from 1923 to 1929, tallying a mark of 71-41. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1955. After retiring from coaching following the 1949 season, Bell served as the athletic director at Southern Methodist until 1964. He died in 1983 in Dallas.
02Head coaching record
Football
| Year | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Bowl/playoffs | AP# | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Haskell Indians (Independent) (1920-1921) | |||||||||
| 1920 | Haskell | 7-2-1 | |||||||
| 1921 | Haskell | 5-4 | |||||||
| Haskell: | 14-6-1 | ||||||||
| Carroll Pioneers (Independent) (1922) | |||||||||
| 1922 | Carroll | 3-4 | |||||||
| Carroll: | 3-4 | ||||||||
| TCU Horned Frogs (Southwest Conference) (1923-1928) | |||||||||
| 1923 | TCU | 4-5 | 2-1 | 3rd | |||||
| 1924 | TCU | 4-5 | 1-5 | 8th | |||||
| 1925 | TCU | 7-1-1 | 2-0-1 | 2nd | |||||
| 1926 | TCU | 6-1-2 | 1-1-2 | T-3rd | |||||
| 1927 | TCU | 4-3-2 | 1-2-2 | 5th | |||||
| 1928 | TCU | 8-2 | 3-2 | T-3rd | |||||
| TCU: | 33-17-5 | 10-11-5 | |||||||
| Texas A&M Aggies (Southwest Conference) (1929-1933) | |||||||||
| 1929 | Texas A&M | 5-4 | 2-3 | 5th | |||||
| 1930 | Texas A&M | 2-7 | 0-5 | 7th | |||||
| 1931 | Texas A&M | 7-3 | 3-2 | 3rd | |||||
| 1932 | Texas A&M | 4-4-2 | 1-2-2 | 4th | |||||
| 1933 | Texas A&M | 6-3-1 | 2-2-1 | 4th | |||||
| Texas A&M: | 24-21-3 | 8-14-3 | |||||||
| SMU Mustangs (Southwest Conference) (1935-1941) | |||||||||
| 1935 | SMU | 12-1 | 6-0 | 1st | L Rose | ||||
| 1936 | SMU | 5-4-1 | 2-3-1 | 5th | |||||
| 1937 | SMU | 5-6 | 2-4 | 6th | |||||
| 1938 | SMU | 6-4 | 4-2 | 2nd | |||||
| 1939 | SMU | 6-3-1 | 4-2 | T-2nd | |||||
| 1940 | SMU | 8-1-1 | 5-1 | T-1st | 16 | ||||
| 1941 | SMU | 5-5 | 2-4 | 5th | |||||
| SMU Mustangs (Southwest Conference) (1945-1949) | |||||||||
| 1945 | SMU | 5-6 | 4-2 | 2nd | |||||
| 1946 | SMU | 4-5-1 | 2-4 | T-5th | |||||
| 1947 | SMU | 9-0-2 | 5-0-1 | 1st | T Cotton | 3 | |||
| 1948 | SMU | 9-1-1 | 5-0-1 | 1st | W Cotton | 10 | |||
| 1949 | SMU | 5-4-1 | 2-3-1 | 5th | |||||
| SMU: | 79-40-8 | 43-25-4 | |||||||
| Total: | 153-88-17 | ||||||||
| National championship Conference title Conference division title or championship game berth | |||||||||
| |||||||||
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Matty Bell”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Matty Bell 1949.jpg by Associated Press, Public domain
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