Sarnia, Ont. – Oct. 17, 1950 – CP- by Montreal Gazette

One of football’s most spectacular plays – a diving tackle in the open field – took the life of a young Sarnia backfielder early today.

Football experts said the play on which 25-year-old Jack Bell was fatally injured last Saturday was of a type in which the odds against death are “thousand to one.” The Sarnia Imperials quarterback left his feet to tackle speedy Carl Galbreath of Toronto Balmy Beach and struck his head against the Toronto player’s hip.

Bell twisted his neck and was carried off the field on a stretcher, partially paralyzed. He failed to rally and died in hospital today.

The young Royal Canadian Navy veteran was playing his third season with the Imperials of the Senior Ontario Rugby Football Union. His boyhood idol was another Sarnia backfielder who died violently – big Ormond Beach, who lost his life in an oil-plant explosion in 1938.

But Bell’s death was the first in the 67-year history of the Senior ORFU that was directly attributed to football and the first in any Canadian senior football league since 1922.

Team managers and officials handling Saturday’s game were in agreement that Bell’s death was accidental and in no way due to rough play.

Sarnia coach Hugh (Red) Douglas said Bell and Galbreath were travelling very fast in opposite directions at a slight angle to each other.

“When Jack tackled him, he hit him with his head,” said Douglas. “It must have twisted his neck until it snapped.”

Line coach Dwight Follin of Balmy Beach said Galbreath ducked and side-stepped just before Bell hit him, throwing the Sarnia player off balance.

Warren Stevens, athletic director of the University of Toronto, and Frank Clair, coach of Toronto Argonauts of the Interprovincial Union, agreed that the odds against an accident of the type that took Bell’s life are “tremendous.”

Clair said a relaxation of a player’s neck muscles might be the cause. If a tackler was fooled by a runner, he tended to relax these muscles and his neck would snap back on collision.

Born at Port Colborne, Ont., Bell grew up in Sarnia and played high-school and city-league football before joining the Navy. He served in the R.C.N.’s first torpedo-boat flotilla. Following his discharge, he became a partner in a local taxi-cab company.

His mother, Mrs. Jeannie Bell, who watched the game in which her son was injured, absolved Galbreath of blame for the accident and  expressed the wish that he might attend the funeral here Thursday. Galbreath said in Toronto today that he hoped to be able to attend.

Officials of the Sarnia club said that Bell’s number – 19 – would be retired for all time and that his sweater would be buried with him.

Team-mates from the Imperials will form a guard of honor at the funeral.

Editor’s Note: The fieldhouse at Norman Perry Memorial Park was named the Jack Bell Fieldhouse in memory of this former Sarnia Imperial.