In February 1972 Inside Sports made its radio debut on W-O-O-K Radio in Washington, DC, radio and TV sports talk shows have never been the same. The Inside Sports format changed the way we talk and report sports in America and beyond.

I was on the airwaves for almost a decade before local media discovered Inside Sports and Harold Bell. JD Bethea a sports columnist for the Washington Times was the first to write a lionizing column regarding my work with inner-city children, titled, “HAROLD BELL.”

Donald Huff a native Washingtonian and High School Sports Editor for the Washington Post, followed JD Bethea with a column titled, “Bell Gets His Ratings On The Streets.”

AGAINST ALL ODDS: In 1980 William Taaffe, the Radio and TV critic for the Washington Times writes ‘Talk Show Host Harold Bell Blazes a Path ‘Inside Sports.’

This leads me back to the birthday celebrations of Dr. Martin Luther King, and Muhammad Ali. Their January birthdays lead us to February and Black History Month.

The month brings to the forefront, the pimps in the pulpit, hustlers, and politicians who are responsible for the sad state of Black America. In 2025 we are last in peace and war, and seldom do we go from WORSE to FIRST. Blocking our path is ‘White Privilege and Spooks Who Sit by the Door.’

In February, the XLI Super Bowl will be played in New Orleans, the city of America’s recent terrorist attack. The Super Bowl is a reminder there has been little or no progress in Black America. The NFL team owners have made a mockery of The Rooney Rule.

The rule was named after Pittsburg Steeter owner Art Rooney. The late Mr. Rooney was considered a man of integrity and inclusiveness.

The rule was established to ensure that NFL teams interview blacks and minorities for head coaching and administrator jobs in the NFL (black ownership was not excluded in the agreement).

The closest we have come to fair and equity hiring was when the Divide and Conqer Wall was threatened by QB Colin Kaepernick taking a knee in 2016. He was protesting against racism and police brutality in American cities.

The bickering among the players over the petty cash offered by the owners for community endeavors killed the movement. Kaepernick took the money and ran a QB sneak. He is living happily ever after.

He and the players were unaware they were just one Sunday’s boycott of NFL games from Blacks getting their ’40 Acres and a Mule.’ NFL style. When one owner said, “Let’s offer them Money“, all hell broke loose among the players-money was ‘The Game Changer.’ The money offered was petty cash, 32 million dollars to the NFL Players Association for community endeavors. Divide by 32 teams, one million dollars per team. “A Change is Coming”, don’t expect it in Super Bowl Sunday 2025.

In Taaffe’s 1980 column, he wrote, ‘Most radio sports talk shows do not contain intimate bits of verse set to music, as Bell’s show did on WYCB-1340 last week.

Neither do most shows feature stimulating discussions about drug use in sports, racism within the NFL, abuse of naive athletes by agents, and inspirational messages about life on 14th Street. But Harold Bell is a unique-sports talk show host, former athlete, youth leader, and social critic all rolled into one.

Let’s say it right at the top: “Inside Sports” (Fridays, 10 p.m. to midnight) is a jewel of a program-easily the most reflective and provocative radio sports talk show in Washington. Its guests actually say something. The other shows are bland by comparison.”

Taaffe, was right 45 years ago, “THE ORIGINAL INSIDE SPORTS” has never been duplicated only copied!

Taaffe, mentioned in his column, that I talked about naive athletes allowing agents to rip them off, two of the biggest thieves were sports agent David Falk and Coach John Thompson of Georgetown University. Big John would funnel Georgetown basketball players to Falk and Falk would pay him under the table.

I discovered Falk had ripped NBA Hall of Fame player Adrian Dantley off for several million dollars from his account. Adrian was out of the country at the time of my discovery on his honeymoon. I called his mom, Virginia. I had known her since he was not as big as a basketball.

GOOGLE: SUPER AGENT SHOWS HE’S A SUPER SNAKE / by Peter Vecsey New York Post March 9, 2004.

This was 20 years after I exposed Falk for the crook he still is. NBA Commissioner David Stern, John Thompson, the sports media, and the NBA players kept Falk a secret while he ripped off the black athlete, (MJ, John Lucas, Alonzo Morning, Patrick Ewing, and Dikemba Mutombo were all included in the scam). Allan Iverson was spared; someone had given him the 411 on Falk. He avoided the financial trap.

I still cannot understand today why Andrian’s mother, Virginia found it difficult to believe Falk was not ripping her son off. I remember her saying, “David just named Andrian, his daughter’s Godfather!

Falk had played Andrian and his mother. He had blinded side them with a ‘Family’ gesture making it easier to steal him blind.

Andrian Dantley sued Falk in court for the millions of dollars missing from his account. Several years later I found Falk hanging around the Denver Nuggets locker room after a game with the Washington Wizards. Dantley was an assistant coach with the Nuggets!

I asked Dantley if Falk was waiting to see him and what was going on? He muttered something about Falk was not the only one to blame, his partner was a part of the rip-off! That was enough for me to say, “I surrender!”

I always tried to ignore the excuse that Adrian was sometimes a little slow and an introvert because he grew up without a father.

Andrian Dantley never fooled me, I had figured him out long before that jackass explanation regarding the reason Falk gave him for stealing money out of his account.

Adrian’s elevator never left the first floor in “The Game Called Life.” The bottom line, he was a selfish young man, not slow and introverted as some had claimed.

I have known hundreds of young black men who grew up without a father, including me. There were four of us, my mother raised three and my hero, Grandma Bell raised my older brother Bobby.

My brothers and I had our problems and disagreements, but we still made a difference in the lives of others. My older brother was a U. S. Marshall for 20 years, and my brother Earl ‘Bull’ Bell served in the United States Army for two tours as a Military Police Sergeant and heavyweight Boxing Champion.

Racism forced him to leave the Army. He was also a DC cop for 14 years with the rank of sergeant. He discovered the hard way, that you can run from racism, but you cannot hide from it in America.

Sgt. Earl K. Bell: A Black GI’S Tale Of Racism In The Army

The youngest, William aka, Billy, Puddin, Tyrik served as a U. S. Marine and worked as a photographer for the notorious boxing promoter, Don King.

Growing up without a father is never an excuse for being a selfish man (James Brown-Mike Wilbon-Sugar Ray Leonard-Tony Paige-Lamont Jordan-Bill Rhoden).

I remember my last contact with Andrian. I was walking down the Georgia Avenue corridor near Howard University in a drizzling rain. A tan Rolls Royce pulled over to the curve and the driver blew his horn to get my attention, it was Andrian. He asked me if I needed a ride, and I said, “No Thanks!”

I remember, he never said, thanks for my alerting him about David Falk. He was there for my celebrity tennis tournaments, fashion shows, and benefit basketball games for Kids In Trouble. Andrian never sent a kid to camp or donated a toy for a needy child.

Andrian is seen with DC Superior Court Judge Eugene Hamilton during a celebrity basketball game fundraiser at GT University for Kids In Trouble. He was being honored as the KIT High School Basketball Player of the Year. In the next photo, he is seen receiving the KIT College Player of the Year Award from TV 7 Anchorman Fred Thomas, at the Inside Sports Celebrity Fashion Show held at the Foxtrappe in DC.

In the last photo, Andrian is standing on the left during a photo shoot of the Inside Sports Celebrity Tennis Tournament in Anacostia Park in SE DC. Among the celebrity participants, Earl ‘The Pearl’ Monroe (NBA), TV 7 Anchor, Renee Pousant, Donnie Simpson (BET), Bernie Bickerstaff (NBA), Phil Chenier (NBA), Freddy Scott (NFL), Timmy Newsome (NFL), Adrian Branch (NBA) Jim ‘Bad News’ Barnes, and Carlos Terry (NBA).

He was last seen working as a Crossing Guard for Elementary School Children somewhere in Maryland-nice cover!

Despite, Virginia Dantley’s reluctance to believe Falk was extorting money from her son, forty- five years after William Taaffe described my calling out the naive Black Athlete regarding the misuse of their funds by crooked agents. There is ‘Some Light at the End of the Tunnel.’

We are heading into Black History Month and ‘Super Bowl 59’ and ‘Black Mothers’ with sons playing in the NFL have said, “Enough is Enough.” They are now ‘The Agents’ who will be counting the money and representing their NFL sons.

The NFL and Black America were just one dropped pass in the closing seconds of the Bills and Ravens game from having four Black Quarterbacks as starters in the final four games of the NFL playoffs. It would have been a first.

Let me introduce you to three of the four mothers whose sons will start in three of the four playoff games in the final week leading to the Super Bowl:

Regina Jackson is Jayden Daniels’ mother, and she is much more than a cheerleader and spectator when her son is on the field. She is an educator with a Bachelor’s Degree in business and a Masters Degree in Counseling. Jayden is the Heisman Trophy winner and was the No. 2 overall pick in the NFL draft. Mom has his back and a seat at the table for all things NFL and community endeavors’ earmarked Jayden Daniels. The Commanders are on a mission many thought was impossible. He made the NFL Final Four leading the Commanders to a 12-5 record. There were wins over the NFC Champions, Philadelphia Eagles, and the No. 1 seed Detroit Lions on their home field. The Eagles and QB Jaylen Hurts beat the Commanders 26-18 in their first meeting in Philadephia. Jaylen Hurts was injured in the first quarter in their second meeting. He missed the entire game. The Commanders won 36-33.

Pamela Hurts, the mother of Jaylen Hurts QB for the Philadelphia Eagles. She also pursued a career in education. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and a Master’s Degree in Counseling. When Jaylen was drafted in the second round by the Eagles, she immediately took the NFL Agents’ Exam. Despite not being his agent, she went through the process to help guide his career both on and off the field.

Regina Jackson and Pamela Hurts have similar educational backgrounds and they are “Spot On.” when it comes to protecting their sons.

The Commanders and Eagles will meet in Philadelphia on Saturday for ‘The Rubber Match’ and the winner will travel to New Orleans to meet the winner of the Chiefs and Bills in Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans on Sunday,

One of these moms will be the first Black female ‘Sports Agent’ to have a ‘SEAT AT THE TABLE’ representing her QB son.

Filicia Jones is the mother of Raven QB Lamar Jackson a former athlete. She played college basketball. She was also her son’s first football coach and took it to the next level when she became his agent. When Lamar decided to let his mother negotiate his first NFL contract. The Player Haters And Know it Alls came out of the woodwork, saying he needed a ‘Real Agent.’ Lamar signed a 4-year contract for 9 million dollars per season. His last contract negotiated by his mother broke the NFL Player’s Bank. He signed a 4-year deal worth 260 million dollars making him the highest-paid player in NFL history. Lamar should win his 3rd NFL MVP award for 2025. The naysayers may use the Ravens’ loss in the last seconds of the game to the Bills as an excuse to give the award to QB Joe Burrows. Lamar led the NFL in every QB category.

Congratulations to Filicia Jones for raising a REAL BLACK MAN and for being a pioneer in the Black Community that is short on pioneers, as we celebrate the birthdays of Muhammad Ali and Dr. Martin Luther King.

The NFL will be giving out its “IRON MAN” award to an NFL player who has reached back into his community to enhance the lives of young people and the poor and disenfranchised.

The award should be named after Washington Redskin/Commanders’ linebacker, the late Harold McLinton. Harold and his Washington Redskins/Commanders teammates, WR Roy Jefferson, RB Larry Brown, and DB Ted Vactor were the first NFL teammates to reach back into the community in 1970.

McLinton was helping a stranded motorist in Washington, DC on 495 in front of Bolling Air Force Base. He was hit by another driver and died a few days later. He is the “ORIGINAL IRON MAN” of the NFL.

NFL Films videotape its first-ever community promo with Washington Redskns/Commanders players RB Larry Brown and LB Harold McLinton. They are teaching water safety at the Kids In Trouble Saturday Program in NW DC.

Harold McLinton is Santa’s Helper at the annual KIT toy party

Harold McLinton proves no one is Too Tall to Stoop to help a child

THE TWO KINGS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY (RIP)