'I felt guilty': Bell on retirement

By Stephanie Smarrelli

During her 15 years of elite netball Erin Bell encountered her fair share of challenges, but finishing playing may have been her biggest challenge yet.  

Retirement is a looming prospect for most elite athletes. It's incredibly difficult to step away from the top level and for Bell, that was no different. 

“I wasn't an elite athlete, but I still felt guilty not training three hours a day because that's what I'd always done,” Bell said.

A premiership player with the Swifts in 2008, Thunderbirds in 2010 and 2013, with multiple Netball World Cup gold medals to her name, Bell was at the height of her career a decade ago. 

Known for being the cool, calm and collected long-range shooter you could rely on, Bell was often in a league of her own. But as the years wore on, she started feeling the pressure. 

And that pressure followed her into retirement. 

Bell confessed she struggled following the end of her sporting career. For 15 years her identity had been intrinsically entwined with netball.  

“You get up, you go to training, you eat the same thing for breakfast, you train, you recover, you're told where to be and what to do at every moment of your life. To then suddenly not have that, I had to quickly create my own routines to fill that void,” she said. 

Bell enjoyed a decorated career which included eight years for the Adelaide Thunderbirds where she captained the side. A move to Melbourne to join the Collingwood Magpies was one she needed to make but came with its own challenges.  

Spending just the one year with the Pies meant she wasn't able to build a support network in Melbourne, but it did help rekindle her love of the sport, though not for long. 

“I made the decision to move based on the fact I wasn't playing my best netball or really enjoying myself. Instead of retiring then I thought to give it one more crack maybe a change of environment was all I needed,” she said.  
 
"When I moved to Collingwood, it became clear that it wasn't just the environment. I was done with the commitment.”  

The fact she didn't have a support base in Melbourne made the transition out of netball harder. 

“I had no support,” Bell said. 

“My family is in NSW, my husband's family is here but the support networks that I'd built up were in Adelaide. 

“I remember sitting at home one day looking at my computer thinking ‘well, I don't even have a job, what am I going to do with myself now?’”  

The answer came through former Collingwood assistant coach Kate Upton. 

Upton had just received the call to join the Pies and was vacating her job coaching at a school that was local to Bell. 

“She recommended me to the school, I ended up taking her job coaching their netball program,” Bell said. 
 
“It was a blessing because then I could throw myself into that full time.” 

Six years on and Bell is still working at the school, currently on maternity leave having welcomed her second child Nahla last August.  

Bell's glad everything fell in place but admits she wasn't sure what would have happened otherwise. 

“It worked out in the end but there were definitely a few months where it was a bit like you were thrown to the the curb,” she said. 
 
“Everyone thinks that you're happy and move on, but you struggle to find your feet a little."  

Instrumental to Bell finding her feet outside of elite netball was the season she spent with the Casey Demons in the Victorian Netball League (VNL). 

“A lot of people probably think ‘you're going backwards, you've retired just give it up’ but that year in state league was important for me to get my confidence back as a player and as a person,” she said.  

“I lost a lot of confidence towards the end of my career. During 2013 and 2015 when I was in the Diamonds I was flying and then towards the back end of my career I didn't feel I was playing netball well anymore.” 
 
The 37-year-old is currently playing for Narre Warren in the AFL Outer East league, an opportunity that came up thanks to her connections to the Casey Demons. 
 
"Michelle Mashado, I met through Casey and she's a coach at Narre, they had an injury to their goaler and she said, ‘Do you think you'll play?’ I said no, then I said alright I'll come to training and give it a go and then I was playing that weekend, she roped me in,” Bell laughed. 

Having made her return to the sport following the birth of two children, Bell acknowledged her latest return has been harder than the first. 
 
“I had my first in 2021 around COVID time. We were in lockdown, I found it a lot easier to exercise and to get myself back because I had the time.  It was really nice to get back out there at a lower level and just have fun and take the pressure off,” she said. 

"Coming back this time has been a lot harder. I don't think I'm going to get through the season, I don't have time to train and the time I need to put into my body.” 

Bell believes she's at a stage in life now where she feels happy to let go of her netball playing days and focus instead on coaching. 
 
“I'm happy to pursue coaching and focus on that for now,” she said. 

Bell is currently finishing up a teaching degree but the next goal she wants to tackle is getting an advanced coaching accreditation. 

“I've been sitting on intermediate for way too long. I'd like to do that next year and see if I want to do anything with my coaching and explore any opportunities that come up career wise because you just never know,” she said. 

Asked whether she would one day want to go down the path of coaching elite netball like former Origin Diamonds teammate Bec Bulley, Bell didn't rule it out.  

"At the moment with young kids, I don't know how people do it. I look at Bec Bulley, she's got two young kids that's just crazy,” she said. 

“I know part of me would want to and then the other part goes that's not a right now thing. 

“I'd love to do things more with the 17s and 19s age groups that are doing nationals and work with Cathy Fellows with under 21s, do little bits and pieces as specialist.” 

As a mother of two, most of Bell's time is spent with her family. Her favourite part of being a parent is how rewarding it feels to spend time with her kids. 

“It's a whirlwind, you put in the hard yards for them. My three-year-old still gets up overnight. It's been four years of no sleep, but then he’ll sit there and say, ‘I love you, mum,'" she said. 

“I spent so many years putting myself first as an elite athlete having the opportunity to put others first and to have kids is a privilege that not everyone gets.  

"I feel very lucky and as hard as it is I've got two little kiddies that think the world of me and I think the world of them.” 
 

Feature image supplied by Erin Bell.