Only five of the twelve athletes are making their Paralympic debut, but all five of these newcomers played on the winning Parapan Ams team last fall.

“We’re fortunate that we have a really strong pool to draw from,” Bell said. “Some of the new guys that are coming in … have the potential to make a big impact on our team. They just need the experience, and once they get the experience, they’ll be very versatile players.”

While Bell has a wealth of experience playing international wheelchair basketball, he has had to make his own adjustments as he prepares for Paris. For the previous two Paralympics, Bell was in top form playing in professional European leagues. About a year and a half ago, he retired from professional play to take a full-time job as a corporate partner at Visa.

Now that Visa is a sponsor of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Bell said his managers are understanding when it comes to needing time off to travel for competitions. Still, the transition from thinking only about basketball to having to schedule workouts around work projects has been “extremely difficult.”

“Being able to literally focus on basketball all day, all week, all year, was huge for my development and I just kept getting better at it,” said Bell, who now lives in California. “But I know basketball isn’t forever. … I knew I had to start focusing on what was going to happen after basketball while still practicing and competing.”

Basketball may not be forever, but it is a constant in Bell’s life. Basketball and football were his two favorite sports growing up, and he continued to play both sports after his right leg was amputated in a train accident when he was 10.

Bell was determined to prove to himself that he could play soccer with a prosthetic limb. However, it wasn’t something he could do long-term. Wheelchair basketball, on the other hand, was a natural fit, especially since he lived less than 15 minutes away from the Lakeshore Foundation, a nonprofit that has had its own wheelchair basketball team since 1984.

“Most of the players I knew growing up had to travel an hour, two hours to get to practice,” Bell said. “I was lucky it was so close.”

Bell’s geographic good fortune allowed him to compete for Team USA, a privilege he never takes for granted.

“I wanted to join the military from a young age,” Bell said. “When I got injured, that went wrong. So it’s a great achievement to be able to represent my country and play a high-level sport at the same time.”