IT RUNS IN HER FAMILY
CREE BELL, left, gives it her all in the senior girls’ 100-metre finals during the Ray Lewis Relays at McMaster. With a long line of remarkable forebears, athletics is in the Sir Allan MacNab student’s blood, Steve Milton writes
An ultra-accomplished ancestry can be a prohibitive burden or it can power your own engine with high octane fuel.
It’s pretty clear which way Cree Bell sees it.
“I’ve thought about that,” says the Grade 11 sprinter from Sir Allan MacNab. “There’s a lot of great people in my family, so I guess there is a lot of pressure, but there’s also encouragement, too. It’s an inspiration for me to be good.”
Bell is good. And not just on the track. She’s a top student, excelling at biology, and is a talented artist, specializing in the style of indigenous peoples.
Her bloodlines run through some of the major markers of Hamilton, and North American, history. Her grandmother is Sandi Bell, the community activist and former school board trustee; she is a niece of Reverend John Holland for whom Hamilton’s John C. Holland Awards are named; she is also a niece of the late Honourable Lincoln Alexander, former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario; McMaster and Tiger-Cats legend “Pinky” Lewis and Olympic sprint relay medallist Ray Lewis. And her father is Curtis Bell, who was the Tiger-Cats’ top draft choice in 1989.
Last year, she set a new junior girls’ 100 metres record at McMaster’s Ray Lewis Relays, and Thursday at the same meet, she was second in the senior 100m.
“It was pretty special that I set a record at my own family’s meet,” says Bell, who also runs for the Hamilton Olympic Club “My dad has always told us about the great people in our family.”
Curtis Bell, who went to Cathedral, explains that his family is eighth generation Canadian with deep Hamilton roots and that he identifies as “African-Canadian/ First Nations.”
The family originally arrived here from the U.S. through the legendary Underground Railway, through Windsor and into Chatham, then eventually on to Hamilton. He emphasizes that along the way they had invaluable help from indigenous people.
“My great-great-great grandmother was a full-blooded Erie; they became part of the Iroquois Confederacy,” he says. “On my mother’s side, they came through Ohio, so we have Potawatomi on that side.
“Our family is black, but we’re all connected through that passage on the Underground Railway. I teach my kids to be proud of who you are.”
Cree Bell’s art work revolves around the indigenous people’s part of her heritage which, her father said, started at an early age with influence from Six Nations artists.
“It was kind of an outlet for stress for me,” the 16-year-old says. “I always drew when I was a little girl. I do traditional native art, with markers, and around grade 9, I found that my art was getting pretty good so I decided to start selling it: at the James Street art crawl and at Wellwood (cancer centre.)”
She also has a strong interest in biology and is considering pursuing that, or psychology, when she decides which university — probably in the U.S., on a track scholar-
ship — she’ll attend after her Grade 12 year.
“Environmental sciences might be an option for me,” she says. “I think the earth is in a crisis right now and I’d like to try to do something about that.
“My first goal right now is to get a scholarship to a school in the States. I have a couple of schools in mind, but not one specific school.”
Kevin Gonci, who’s coached track at MacNab for nine years says Bell is polite, respectful and has great potential on the track, and that she’s the first to come out for practice and the last to leave.
“She shattered the school fitness record for the girls’ phys ed department last year and that’s probably going to stand for several years,” Gonci says. “She is incredibly focused and she’s a talented artist, I’ve seen her work.
“I grew up in the north end and Sandi Bell was our trustee. When Cree showed up at MacNab I thought if there’s any kind of legacy, it would be a real treat working with her.”
Gonci must be having a great time because that legacy is living and deep.