FAYETTEVILLE – Hunter Bell, a former University of Arkansas at Monticello baseball player, has been named the director of strength and conditioning for the Arkansas Razorbacks baseball program.
Bell comes to the University of Arkansas from Elon (N.C.) University, where he spent the past year as an assistant sports performance coach. He oversaw strength and conditioning for the baseball and women's lacrosse programs while also assisting with football.
In his one season with the Phoenix, Bell helped in the development of a pair of 2022 MLB Draft selections – outfielder Alex Iadisernia (St. Louis Cardinals, seventh round) and pitcher Trevor Kirk (New York Yankees, 20th round).
"We're excited for Coach Bell to join our staff," Arkansas head baseball coach Dave Van Horn said. "After a thorough and extensive search, his passion for working with student-athletes and his innovative approach to strength training and development stood out the most. He'll be a great asset to our program."
Prior to Elon, Bell worked at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and oversaw strength and conditioning for men's wrestling, women's soccer, track and field, and tennis while assisting with football. Before that, he was a graduate assistant at Missouri State University, where he was responsible for performance training of the track and field, swim and dive, and baseball programs.
As the lead strength and conditioning assistant for Missouri State baseball, Bell helped in the development of pitcher Hayden Juenger, who was selected by the Toronto Blue Jays in the sixth round of the 2021 MLB Draft.
Before his stop at Missouri State, he interned at Texas Christian University, working with the Horned Frogs football, men's basketball, and baseball programs.
The Vicksburg, Miss., native got his start in sports performance as an intern at Mississippi State University (2018) and Ole Miss (2019-20), where he worked directly with football. Bell also gained experience in the private sector during that time, working at Pro Sports Performance (2019) in Brookhaven, Miss., and implementing the basketball, softball and baseball strength and conditioning programs for Copiah-Lincoln Community College.
Bell, who is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist through the National Strength and Conditioning Association as well as CPR/AED certified, earned his associate degree from Hinds Community College (2014-16), where he played two seasons of baseball for the Bulldogs. He received his bachelor's degree in exercise science from UAM (2016-18), where he played two seasons of baseball for the Boll Weevils.