Klarissa Bell was a star basketball player for East Lansing High School and Michigan State University. Now she's back home, teaching gym at Robert L. Green Elementary School. (Courtesy of Klarissa Bell)

East Lansing Basketball Star Klarissa Bell is Happy to be Home

After years of living a fast-paced life filled with training and long flights, former East Lansing and Michigan State basketball star Klarissa Bell has slowed things down and returned to teach in her home district. 

Born and raised in East Lansing, Bell started playing basketball at a young age. She went on to become East Lansing High School’s (ELHS) first Miss Basketball award winner and helped lead her team to a Michigan Class A state championship title in 2010.  

Through those experiences, Bell developed a love for the game.

“Basketball had a massive impact on who I am today,” Bell said. “I mean, just even as a kid, playing travel basketball, you’re always on the go and you really have to learn time management at a young age.”

Klarissa Bell during her playing days at Michigan State University. (Courtesy of Klarissa Bell)

Bell chose not to leave East Lansing after graduating from ELHS in 2010, and traveled across Grand River Avenue to continue her athletic and academic career at MSU.

During the point guard’s MSU career, Bell led the team in points and rebounds as a junior, and graduated as a two-time All-Big Ten player and three-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree. After graduating with a degree in education from MSU in March 2014, Bell married MSU basketball player Russell Byrd in June 2014, though the couple has since divorced.

Bell and Byrd, along with their daughter Addison, traveled the world for Byrd’s professional basketball career. 

After living in California and Romania, and traveling to many other places, Bell ultimately found her way home to East Lansing in 2020.

“I have always wanted to move back to East Lansing,” Bell said. “We traveled for a while. He [Byrd] was playing basketball, so we traveled for the first five years of my daughter’s life. And then, that COVID year, it just kinda worked out because she [Addison] was going to start kindergarten and I’ve always wanted to come back.”

A 2010 East Lansing High School and 2014 Michigan State University graduate, Bell has returned home to teach physical education at Robert L. Green Elementary School. (Courtesy of Klarissa Bell)

Having grown up in East Lansing and attended MSU and now as a mother in the community, Bell has seen the city change over decades. The biggest change she has seen over the years is the development, with more businesses opening and the city continuing to grow. 

But, overall, what she loves about East Lansing has remained the same. 

“I love the diversity,” Bell said. “I am mixed-race. I am white and Black and when I go into Meijer, I see lots of families and people who look like me. And my kids see lots of people that look like them and lots of people that don’t look like them. I just love the big melting pot feel of East Lansing.”

In 2021, Bell started her teaching career in the Lansing Public School District at Pattengill Biotechnical Magnet School.

After two years in the Lansing school district, Bell saw an opening for a physical education teaching job at Robert L. Green Elementary School and “jumped on it right away.”

Both her children, Addison, 9, and Grayson, 7, attend Green Elementary. 

“I just wanted to be back a part of the East Lansing community and these jobs don’t come available very often,” Bell said. “I love working at Green. The staff is great, the kids are great, I just love the culture in East Lansing.”

Bell feels right at home back teaching in the school district she attended. 

“It’s been great to go to these professional development meetings and see some of my old teachers,” Bell said. 

Klarissa Bell’s two children attend Robert L. Green Elementary School, where she teaches. (Courtesy of Klarissa Bell)

Bell has tried to incorporate a lot of what she has learned through her basketball career into her teaching methods. 

“We spent the first three or four weeks just talking about sportsmanship and how to be a good sport and how to compliment your teammates and your opponents,” Bell said. “A lot of kids have a hard time with competition and learning, so we’ve been focusing on that.”

Basketball continues to influence Bell’s life.

“Basketball required a lot of balance and I think that’s really helped me in my adult life, managing my priorities for sure, and it’s definitely given me a good work ethic,” Bell said. “I know that if I want something, I’m going to have to go for it.”

She coached seventh grade girls basketball at Pattengill for two years and “loved instilling the game into the girls and just helping them develop the love for it.”

Bell also coached her daughter’s travel basketball team in spring 2023. Both her kids have grown up in the gym around basketball, and “they have just naturally developed a liking for it.”

She doesn’t want to pressure her kids into playing the sport she loves. But “with their height and hopefully athleticism, they’ll be able to pick it up pretty easily and fall in love with the game just like we did,” Bell said. 

No matter what sport or activities her children choose to participate in, Bell hopes to instill in them that the mental side of things are just as important as the physical side. 

“For me, that was kind of a challenge in college, to just not beat myself up,” Bell said. “Just helping them be mentally tough would be, hopefully, my biggest piece of knowledge to pass onto them.”