KEY POINTS:
You could say the word 'Warrior' figures large in Dean Bell's life. There's the foundation captaincy of the Warriors; his massive involvement with the Wigan Warriors and, perhaps most importantly, his Warriors Anti-Bullying programme.
Bell is on his way back to the New Zealand Warriors in August after
he finishes up in the UK. He is returning to become the under-20 team manager and the club's community and development manager. They are prosaic titles for one of rugby league's most compelling men.
In sport, there are many well-meaning individuals who can't think beyond the bounce of the ball; the play of the day; the next bonus payment. They are the ones who grunt in interviews, who talk about 'one game at a time'; the self-servers and main-chancers.
Then, every now and then, you run across someone like Bell who not only has the interest of the game at heart - he acts on that interest. The first is reasonably common; the latter, rare.
The Warriors plainly know what sort of man they have attracted. They set up a press conference where Bell made an entrance after a build-up speech from John Hart. If the moment was a little awkward - rugby league doesn't lend itself to the grand gesture; a blue collar game, it still is - Bell soon captured the press by speaking with unabashed, almost unrestrained honesty.
So what sort of bloke is coming back to be at the sharp end of the Warriors' bid to be a development team, as opposed to a buying team; and its move towards becoming part of the community, as opposed to a high-handed, we-are-not-beholden-unto-you club?
Bell, 45, wins you straight away with a declared lack of ambition in one area. No, he doesn't want to be a coach. Tried it, didn't much like it. He doesn't close the door on it entirely but admits the thing that gets his heart beating fastest is working with kids.
Now understand that Bell is serving out his time in the UK until the Warriors need him for the under-20s, who start in the NRL competition next year. Some of us, in those circumstances, would have a holiday. Or we'd do only what was needed to keep the bills paid.
Bell is doing what he does best - he is continuing his Positive Coaching programme and Wigan's Anti-Bullying campaign working with the kids. The former sees Bell and others visiting schools around the Wigan area to extol and apply the principles of coaching so kids enjoy their rugby league and stay involved in the game - whether as administrators, players or spectators, it doesn't matter.
That programme aims to find the balance between effort, achievement and enjoyment. Too many coaches act as if their kids are elite players. Somewhere between effort and achievement, fun gets dumped in a spear tackle. Too many coaches and parents treat sport like it is life and death from the safety of the sideline, altering the perspective of youngsters.
Bell says he has 13 more clubs and schools to go (seven done already) to spread the rugby league gospel of fun but it is the anti-bullying programme which perhaps really defines him.
"I was reading the national media in Britain and I was shocked to realise just how many kids were committing suicide because of bullying," he says. "I know it is a problem in New Zealand too but I really had no idea how much of a problem it was in Britain."
Bell is the sort of guy who then starts telling you about all the other people who made the anti-bullying programme get up and go and he cheerfully admits to an ability to attract the right people to work with him.
He and Wigan's behavioural support team nutted out a programme which educates primary school kids about bullying; how to cope with it; and lending the weight of the Wigan name and fame to teaching kids that bullying isn't cool. Kids become anti-bullying Warriors.
Even now, every Tuesday, Dean Bell rocks up at another school to deliver another anti-bullying message. It's something that obviously touches him: "One of the questions we ask kids is how they would feel if they were bullied. I have heard a lot of different answers - some very emotional - and I can remember twice when kids told us that, if they were bullied, they would want to take their own lives."
The programme asks kids to become WABs - Warriors Against Bullying - and arms the potential bullied with subtle weapons to combat it. The potential bulliers get a sense of what they might be doing to others.
The hugely successful programme has won much positive feedback and, although impossible to measure, there's a feeling it has helped stop fragile kids taking their own lives.
"It is outstanding the effect it has had," says Bell, "and even after I am gone, I know it will continue. I am not sure if they will find someone to put in the hours but the point is that the base is there."
Wigan league stars lend their names and hours to it and, in an area where league players are like All Blacks in New Zealand, the weight of their fame helps convert the kids.
"As well as being heroes on the fields, these kids see them as heroes in the classroom. They bring them a new way of looking at things and thinking and it makes a difference."
That phrase - making a difference - is a kind of personal mantra with Bell. It crops up often in his speech but such is the force of his honesty that it doesn't come across as glib but as the underpinning of a good, ridgey-didge, league man.
He is keen to use his experience with youngsters in New Zealand, with the Warriors and Auckland Rugby League. But he acknowledges the work Tony Iro - the under-20s coach - and others have done with youngsters and says he knows there is some exciting talent on the way up.
His job, he says, is to help find, channel and retain that talent - although he knows New Zealand league will not always be able to keep the Sonny Bills and the Benjis.
"Marquee players might always be attracted away but if we can show them what a good club we are and how we enjoy ourselves, young players might not always be attracted by the money."
It has been eight weeks since Bell left his beloved Wigan. Their plummet from blue riband club to one seemingly awaiting relegation has transfixed British league.
Bell says poor planning, poor player purchases and an inability to get to grips with Britain's £1.6 million salary cap (he acknowledges it is hard to put a competitive side on the field for that price) has cost them.
Marquee buys have performed less like marquees and more like tent pegs.
"Wigan has the luxury of being a hotbed of young talent," he says. "They have some excellent young guys - but because of the problems they have faced, they have thrown them into the fray maybe a bit early and some haven't coped."
Wigan's last coach, Ian Millward, was also dumped and Bell says the revolving-door, prove-yourself-or-go policy has cost the club dearly.
But through it all, he says the Wigan fans have been outstanding. Supposed only to be "fair weather fans", they have banded together in a show of support for the club that Bell finds uplifting.
There is, he says, a lesson there for all us. From this man, a Warrior many times over, it's a contention with which it is hard to disagree.
A rare career
Dean Bell achieved numerous honours during his rugby league career, including:
* Foundation captain for NZ Warriors in 1995.
* Captained Kiwis in the 1988 World Cup final.
* Played 26 tests for NZ, including three wins against Australia, retiring aged only 27.
* Played 253 games for Wigan, scoring 96 tries between 1986-87 and 1993-94.
* Won seven consecutive Challenge Cup titles with Wigan.
