Hours before punctuating his circuitous and defining adventure of graduating from the University of Minnesota by marching at commencement, Bobby Bell plopped back in a chair, cloaked in a cap and gown he refused to remove.
“He’ll probably sleep in it tonight,” Pamela Held, Bell’s companion, said laughing.
The Chiefs legend and Pro Football Hall of Famer kept glancing at the gold Bulova watch on his left wrist — a gift bestowed in 1959 as he left Shelby, N.C., in pursuit of opportunity he couldn’t have in the segregated south. When they parted that day, his father, Pink Lee Bell, said, “Hey, boy, come here.