The Aberration - Lafeyette Bell Fights Through

An aberration, Glenbard West's Lafeyette Bell has the size and strength
of a post player, but the athleticism and outside touch of a guard.

By Frank Rusnak
On the court, he's tough, rugged and some may even describe the play of Glenbard West's Lafeyette Bell as mean.

"We had 10 people in one house and we didn't have an place to stay. A couple of days I slept on park benches and in abandoned cars."

Lafeyette Bell
Glenbard West Forward

As hardened as Bell has become from sleeping on park benches and abandoned cars, and having a total of seven different homes since the start of high school, it doesn’t show when talking to the upbeat, polite, smiley teenager.

A 6'3" bruising forward, Bell is coming off a 29-point performance including the game-winning shot to lift his No. 7 seeded Hilltoppers past No. 2 seeded York 64-62, for the regional championship Friday night.

With a ridiculous vertical leap, a Bounty-soft three-point shot and sculpted physique his No. 54 Glenbard West jersey could hardly hold, there aren't many players that can keep up with Bell in the West Suburban Silver, where he was first-team all conference in his first full season at the Glen Ellyn school.

While Bell has had a stable home for just over a year with his newly anointed legal guardians Mark and Barb Galli, his life wasn’t always as secure as it is now.

“Freshmen year, the reason I had to move to Downers was because our house went through foreclosure,” Bell said. “We had 10 people in one house and we didn’t have any place to stay. A couple of days I slept on park benches and in abandoned cars. It was tough and scary, you just didn’t know what was going to happen next. Worrying, Am I going to eat? Where am I going to lay my head at tonight?”

Not something many people have to worry about, let alone someone not even old enough to drive yet.

“My dad ran out from the beginning and that taught me,” Bell said. “My mom, she’s an alcoholic. That taught me to stay away from liquor. Both of those situations are the reasons that I’m in the situation that I’m in now.”

After his first year of high school at Proviso West, he transferred to Downers Grove South, then wound up at Glenbard West for his last two years where he stayed at a temporary home in Wheaton, then the Galli’s brought him in.

“It’s been a very positive experience,” Mark Galli said. “I’m white, upper-middle class, college educated, book-oriented, and where Lafeyette’s from reading isn’t a high priority and it’s not unusual for him to see gang-warfare fights, his brothers never graduated high school, he’s interested in rap music. His whole world is brand new to us. Well, not brand new, we’ve read about it in the papers.”

Despite the differences in each of their backgrounds, Mr. and Ms. Galli, as he respectfully refers to them, and their three children, have accepted Bell with open arms.

“They treat me like I’m one of their children,” Bell said. “From day one I always felt welcomed.”

Bell’s new lifestyle, which includes a minimum of two hours of homework a night, fashion and talent shows at school, daily chores, an allowance, Sunday trips to church – Bell was baptized in February – and a family that now considers him one of their own, it is tough to imagine that Bell almost let in to the temptation.

“There was a time when I almost gave up,” he recalls. “But that’s when I finally started praying and God looked out for me. If you stick with it, something’s going to come out of it. My sophomore year when we were going through struggles again, I was about to start selling drugs. I was going to give up on school. I felt I needed to get something going and get some responsibility.”

That’s when he got a part-time job at a local pizza joint and continued to persevere.

Averaging 19 points and nine rebounds a game this year, sticking with it on the court has never been tough for Bell, who committed to Division III Elmhurst College at the end of February.

Trapped mostly in the post for the Hilltoppers as their biggest player, Bell has demonstrated such perimeter skills during the summer AAU season to temporarily peak the interest of Division I schools, but he found what he was looking for in Elmhurst.

“He provides something that our kids have, but don't always exhibit, which is a genuine love for the game of basketball,” Glenbard West coach Lee Maciejewski said. “He shows the kids a compassion that he has for the game. It is good for these other kids to see how important it is to him and how much they can get from the game, as well.

“As discombobulated as his situation is, he shows tremendous emotional stability. His head is screwed on straight. He is polite, cares of others and gives of himself. It's not all about him, it's about us.”

Maciejewski is hoping that Bell can help lead the Hilltoppers to another upset tonight against No. 3 seeded West Chicago, which Glenbard West defeated earlier this season. If they get past West Chicago unscathed, No. 1 Batavia should be waiting for the sectional title. As Batavia knocked Glenbard West out of the playoffs last year, Bell is hoping the roles can be reversed this year and his Hilltoppers can fit into that Cinderella slipper.

Regardless of what happens on the court, Bell knows that he’s won far great battles than any basketball game. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I honestly wouldn’t want to change anything that happened in my life,” Bell said. “The stuff that I went through built me up to the person that I am now.”