Alumna Rachel Price Bell to be inducted into the CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame

Alumna Rachel Price Bell
Alumna Rachel Price Bell, (PhD, 2004), has been named a 2017 inductee of the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-America Hall of Fame®. The CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame recognizes former Academic All-Americas who received a college degree at least 10 years ago, have achieved lifetime success in their professional careers, and are committed to philanthropic causes.

Price Bell will be inducted into the Academic All-America Hall of Fame at CoSIDA's annual convention in Orlando, Florida on Sunday, June 11th during the organization's annual Hall of Fame Ceremony at the World Center Marriott.

Before she came to the Purdue Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering for graduate school, Price Bell was a four-year starter on University of North Alabama volleyball teams from 1996-99 and helped put UNA volleyball on the national map. She helped lead the Lions to a 156-22 record and four consecutive Gulf South Conference championships and four straight NCAA Division II Tournament appearances which included two NCAA regional championships.

She was a second-team AVCA All-American selection during her junior and senior seasons in 1998 and 1999. She played in a school-record 593 games and 178 matches and finished with 1,539 kills.

The scholar-athlete also earned CoSIDA Academic All-America honors in 1998 (third-team) and 1999 (first-team). She and her twin sister Ronda, also a UNA volleyball star, are two of only eight UNA student-athletes all-time to have earned both All-American and Academic All-America honors.

Price Bell was also an Academic All-GSC honoree in 1997, 1998 and 1999 and received the Gulf South Conference Commissioner's Trophy as the premier female student-athlete in the league in 1999 and 2000. As a senior, Price Bell was also named NCAA Division II Conference Commissioner's Association National Female Scholar Athlete of the Year in 2000.

Among her numerous post-college honors, Price Bell was inducted into the UNA Athletic Hall of Fame in 2011 in her first year of eligibility. In 2013 she and her twin sister Ronda were named as the Gulf South Conference's top female student-athletes for the 40th Anniversary of the NCAA Division II and were honored at the NCAA Convention in San Diego.

Price Bell also was inducted into the Gulf South Conference Hall of Fame in 2015.

Following her graduation from UNA, Price Bell earned a PhD in biomedical engineering from the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue. The clinical scientist is currently employed as a clinical project manager in West Lafayette, Ind., coordinating studies for new medical devices.

Source: Barb Kowal, CoSIDA Director of Professional Development and External Affairs

For more information: http://bit.ly/Bell-Hall-of-Fame