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A lthough he was nearing his thirties when he coached at Penn and Temple, Bert Bell spent most of his nights and weekends partying and gambling. “Before he was married, Bert touched all the bases,” said longtime Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney, who later became one of his best friends. As a result of his playboy lifestyle, Bert found himself having problems off the playing field. In 1923, a jury in Philadelphia’s Common Pleas Court awarded $1,000 in damages to a local taxi driver, Waldo E. Ghilon, who suffered a broken kneecap and spent 22 days in the hospital after Bell’s car crashed into his cab in the wee hours of the morning in Fairmount Park. Bert denied charges that he was speeding and driving recklessly but was still ordered to pay after the jurors deliberated for three hours. Every August, Bert would join friends like the Vanderbilts, the Whitneys , Henry Sinclair, and Bernard Baruch and travel up to New York State for an extended vacation. There they spent days at the Saratoga Racetrack— where Bert would wager up to $500 on a horse—and evenings gambling and enjoying the nightlife at the Brook and Piping Rock clubs. Future New York Giants owner Jack Mara, then the bookmaker on Saratoga’s plush lawn, was a frequent companion. “I know my father went into a casino there one time and he wanted to play, but they wouldn’t take his check,” Bert Jr. remembered. “So later he got even. One night he won a quarter of a million or something and they wanted to give him a check. He said,‘You wouldn’t take my check. I won’t take yours.’” Bert Bell Jr. also recalls that his dad played a lot of poker and bridge. “I remember him telling me one time, ‘Don’t worry about losing streaks. Sometimes they could last three weeks; sometimes a month.’” Charles Goren, the famed international bridge champion, wrote about his frequent games with Bell in Sports Illustrated shortly after Bert’s death 6. The Roaring Twenties— Off the Field 30 • Chapter 6 in 1959. They often played at the Racquet Club and Penn Athletic Club in Philadelphia. Sometimes they were joined by Swede Youngstrom, the great Dartmouth guard who played across the line from Bell when the Indians upset the Quakers, 20–19, in 1919. Goren explained that because women were never present at these contests ,“some of the social amenities were not always observed. Bert Bell did not impress me as a man of many superstitions, but on one point he was adamant: he refused to play bridge with his head uncovered. He also preferred to play with a minimum of convention in his bidding, and he did not always conform even to that minimum. If this made him a somewhat difficult partner, it also made him a difficult opponent.” Although the total amount has never been verified, Bell lost tons of money, especially during the Depression. He also took some financial hits while working for a while at Carstairs and Company, a brokerage house located in Philadelphia’s Ritz Carlton Hotel. He dropped $50,000 during the stock market crash of 1929. Some accounts have estimated his total losses at $1 million by today’s monetary standards. But most of his losses came from wagering at bridge, golf, poker, and the racetrack. Bert’s father, John C. Bell, insisted on certain rules of social decorum, even though the younger Bell’s behavior on the outside was quite the opposite. “I don’t care how late you stay out or what you do,” his father would say. “I insist that you get up and come down and have breakfast with me. And you must be dressed in a shirt and a tie.” Bert complied faithfully, but after a while his father grew impatient and finally exploded. “Dammit,” he said, “you’re thirty-something and still drinking, gambling, and running around. I’m tired of bailing you out. It’s time you settled down!” John C. offered a solution. He and some friends arranged to have the young man marry a friend of the family, someone who was a Main Line debutante, and, of course, a wealthy member of high society. Bert resisted strongly, so his dad sweetened the offer. “If you agree to marry this young woman, I’ll give you $100,000,” he promised. Bert reluctantly agreed and the engagement was set. The next day, Bert headed back...

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