Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

UNLV Women’s Basketball:

Guard moving forward: Lady Rebels’ Bell transitions from player to assistant coach

Mia Bell

UNLV Athletics

UNLV coach Kathy Olivier (left) talks to point guard Mia Bell. A Durango High grad, Bell is jumping straight from playing guard for Olivier to joining her staff as an assistant coach for the 2014-15 season.

When Mia Bell moved from Chicago with her mother and grandmother, they were looking for something better. Bell never thought she would find something this good in Las Vegas.

Since that change in middle school, Bell discovered basketball, starred at Durango High, decided to stay in the desert to attend UNLV and now, after a fortuitous chain of events, she goes from starting point guard to full-time assistant on coach Kathy Olivier’s staff.

“I’m not originally from here but this is my home,” Bell said. “… I don’t know what I would have been doing if I never came here, so I owe a lot of where I am to Vegas and the people here.”

Transitioning from player to graduate assistant is a fairly common occurrence in basketball. However, going straight from player to the four-person coaching staff is rare because it requires the opportunity of an open position combined with a coach willing to put their faith in someone unproven. At UNLV, which opens the season at home on Friday at 4 p.m., Bell found both.

As Bell was sorting through opportunities to continue her playing career overseas, assistant coach Nikki Blue left to join the Cal State Bakersfield staff in her hometown. Blue had been on Olivier’s staff for six years and before that Blue played for her at UCLA.

“I always enjoy having someone on my staff who has played for me,” Olivier said.

There’s inherent knowledge that comes from years spent together, and that’s especially true for a point guard like Bell.

“I was like a coach for her on the floor,” Bell said.

It was former teammate Danielle Miller, the Rebels’ second-leading returning scorer, who told Bell about Blue’s departure and asked her to put a halt to her plans to keep playing. Bell’s teammates knew she eventually wanted to be a coach, and Miller decided that should start now.

“I really wanted her to be the assistant coach,” Miller said. “She’s a motivator.”

Given the opportunity and Bell’s desire to be a coach, the decision ended up being pretty easy on both sides. That doesn’t mean the transition has always been as smooth. For starters, Bell is still adjusting to her new, longer hours.

“I knew (coaches) did a lot for us as a player but I never really understood all the ins and outs of the day in and day out work that they do,” Bell said. “I’ve never been so tired in my life.”

Then there’s the road. One of Bell’s primary duties on the staff is recruiting, so now when she’s out of town she’s doing more to promote UNLV’s brand than just the gear she wears to the games. And until she turns 25 — many companies’ minimum age standard — renting a car is a more costly headache.

“I have to rent cars from different places than (the other coaches) do,” Bell said with a laugh.

That’s all fine with Bell, though. She knows she’s lucky be a full-time Division I assistant making $36,500 before some women her age are even done playing collegiately. The players, her former teammates, feel lucky to keep her around, too, even if they haven’t fully adjusted to the new title.

“The hardest transition is to call her Coach,” said senior Alana Cesarz, UNLV’s top returning scorer.

“I slip up and call her Mimi sometimes,” Miller added.

The mistake is understandable, especially since Bell still gets on the practice floor and her mug shot on the team site is still her pictured in a uniform. One of the sacrifices Bell had to make is understanding the difference between teammate and coach, though she’s confident the change isn’t going to affect any friendships.

“I’m not a player so I kind of have to separate that a little bit,” Bell said. “I was really good friends with Danielle and (Briana Charles), so I can’t hang out with them and do things with them that I would if I wasn’t a coach but that’s just for now.”

Once this class of seniors graduates they can all continue their relationships however they want, and Bell will already be a year into her new career. It’s an opportunity that seemed far-fetched even a year ago, let alone way back in Chicago, and it’s possible because of what Bell found in Las Vegas.

“It’s a bond that I can’t really describe,” Bell said. “You just have to live it.”

Thanks to some good timing and her own skills, Bell gets to keep living it.

Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.

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