Becky Bell began her career at The University of Arizona in 1985 as the Head Women’s tennis coach. Twelve years at the helm resulted in five top-10 finishes, two Regional Coach of the Year awards, a Final Four team (1993), as well as a National Champion Doubles team (all firsts in Arizona tennis history). The 1996 team was ranked as high as #3, finished at #5, and boasted the #1 player in the country. Arizona was recognized as the 7
th best team nationally (averaged) in the last seven years of her coaching career. Before coming to Arizona, Bell was the assistant coach at UCLA for five years, including a National Championship in 1981. In all, she has been part of 5 Final Four teams, 14 top ten teams, as well as other individual singles and doubles national championships and dozens of All Americans. She also served as an Assistant Coach for the USTA National Team for many years. As a player, Bell was an All-American at UCLA, 2-year team captain, MVP in 1980 and a member of the elite National Team (Junior Federation Cup). Bell hails from Riverside, California where she attended Poly High School and played on the boy’s tennis team all 3 years, winning MVP honors and the Bob Vanderzyl Sportsmanship award in her junior and senior years, respectively.
Bell is currently an Associate Athletics Director and has directed the Edward T. Bell Jr. C.A.T.S. Life Skills Program since 1997. The program is named in honor of her father, a 3-sport athlete at Millsaps College and member of their Hall of Fame. Becky raised the funds to be able to name it after him and it is the thing of which she is most proud. The C.A.T.S. Life Skills Program has played a big part in a record setting and national leading 4 NCAA Women of the Year as well as 5 finalists (top 3 in the country). Arizona leads all Pac-12 Schools for the most Leadership and Sportsmanship Awards as well.
Bell is the creator and founder of the national award winning (2009 NASPA Gold) Step UP! Bystander Intervention program (
www.stepupprogram.org) being used by more than 1,000 schools and organizations. She has been recognized with two Visionary Leadership Awards - the 2009 individual award from the UA’s Commission on the Status of Women for her work on Step UP! and the 2018 Peter Likins award for Inclusive Excellence (the only UA campus recipient) given to the C.A.T.S. Life Skills Program for their diversity and inclusion efforts.
She earned her undergraduate degree in Kinesiology from UCLA and was a member of the JV Basketball team her 5
th year. She has earned two Master’s degrees — one in Sports Administration and one in Counseling (with an emphasis in Career counseling). She has made many national presentations and authored the book,
If I Knew Then What I Know Now. Bell served on the 1A Athletics Director’s Association CHAMPS Board of Advisors for eight years. She was inducted into the Riverside (California) Sport Hall of Fame in May 2019.
