Inside The Huskies

With Eye on Distant Future, Huskies Offer Sacramento Receiver

Phillip Bell was sensational as a freshman for Christian Brothers High School.

Dan Raley

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Phillip Bell III is not hard to find on the football field. He's the one who's always open, the guy snagging passes with one hand. In 7-on-7 competition, he's the wide receiver running around in sunglasses.

As in that classic song "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades."

Bell is a 6-foot-2, 185-pound pass-catcher for Christian Brothers High School in Sacramento who has more than a few classes to take in California's state capital before he steps on a college campus, but has to be thinking about what lies ahead.

He's from the Class of 2025, just finishing up his freshman year of high school.

Deciding why wait, Kalen DeBoer's University of Washington recruiters on Monday extended Bell a scholarship offer, his sixth overall and hardly his last. He's also holding offers from California, Oregon, Oregon State, Florida Atlantic and Utah State.

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Long and lean for a schoolboy receiver his age, Bell emerges from a sensational ninth-grade season for him in which he snagged 56 passes for 1,002 yards and a dozen touchdowns for a 7-5 team. 

Bell knows he's good. He has a little showboat him, spinning balls, holding poses and chiding opposing players who try to guard him.

The Huskies have had success bringing in Sacramento players, with linebacker Shaq Thompson from Grant Union High School using the UW as a springboard to the NFL, where he's in his seventh season and one of the league's highest-paid players.

Currently, Sacramento product Alex Cook is a sixth-year player from Sheldon High who's started the past two seasons at safety for the UW.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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