DBs coach Josh Bell has no shortage of ink but his first one came in an unconventional way.

“My freshman year in college, my roommate and my girlfriend at the time were going for tattoos,” says the second year coach.

“My boy was like ‘Oh, he’s afraid of needles’, because I don’t like needles but I never knew that a tattoo gun was a needle.”

Let’s just say he figured that out very quickly.

“So I said ‘I’m not afraid of needles (I am afraid of needles) but I want it to be meaningful and I don’t have the inspiration to get a tattoo right now’. And he said ‘If you get a tattoo right now, I’ll pay for it.”

Needless to say, Bell wasn’t about to turn down free ink.

“$50. In Waco, TX. A $50 tattoo, ‘JB’ on my right shoulder.”

“And then my second tattoo was my sleeve. My boy who was my roommate from high school who also went to Baylor with me, Nick Fellows, GGG Ink Dallas, my dog tatted me the imagery of me carrying a bell like Atlas on my shoulder so carrying the weight of my name on my back.”

Bell’s ink has a consistent theme of self imagery, including the large piece across his back.

“I went to an art show in Dallas and I saw a painting of a man torn between his heart and his mind, just ripping down the middle and when I saw it I said ‘Yesterday I want that’. So I bought the print of the painting and then thought I’m going to get that tatted because that is actually what I’ve been my entire life, kind of my personas. I created two personas: Daddy and The Ruler. One is logical, do what you have to do. The other is emotional and compassionate and so torn between my heart and my mind and got it tatted and that tattoo is kind of like a (big sigh) I can live with that for the rest of my life.”

“I love it and I think that is my favourite one.”