SAO PAULO, Brazil — The Bell family name has been synonymous with football in Jamaica for decades — from Russell to Jackie, Vernon to Douglas and Neville to Howard.

Being brilliant footballers, coaches and administrators, the Bell name is etched in the history of Jamaica’s football.

Today, two more Bells have emerged on the football scene in Onaje and Ramon — two cousins — and they are taking it to another level, as tutors.

The two young men are currently being asked by the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) to tutor the National Under-17 players who are in Brazil on a six-week training stint and are away from school since December 15.

Most of these players are preparing for examinations and being away from school in Jamaica, the second generation Bells are here once again contributing to Jamaica’s football.

Onaje, 31, who attended St George’s College, is impressed with the feedback he is receiving from the players after a couple of lessons.

“We have been asked by the Federation to come supplement the boys’ academic work because they have been away from school for such a long time and make sure they don’t miss out on anything in school,” explained Onaje, who teaches at his father’s school, MRC.

“So we are brushing up on their maths, biology, social studies, language, literature and so forth. So far the feedback is quite good because they are a very disciplined set of talented youngsters and we are looking forward to more,” he added.

The Bells have already worked out a strategy in homing in on the areas of most need.

“We try to identify the major topics in the syllabuses as we know a bunch of them will be going into exams in June and zero-in on that. We are not necessarily doing day-by-day school,” he pointed out.

Meanwhile Ramon, 29, who is the son of Carl Bell, one of the few brothers to play cricket, was just excited to be in Brazil where he can assist the youngsters.

“I love football and always wanted to develop football in any way. Football is in our blood,” said Ramon, a former Wolmer’s Boys’ player who teaches mathematics and also lectures at MRC school, owned by his uncle Russell Bell.

“Math is my area of expertise and it started a little slow, but they have come on and I’m impressed with them. I feel pretty good about it because they have responded well,” said Ramon.

Meanwhile, the JFFgeneral secretary Horace Reid said this pilot programme will be the way forward for future youth teams.

“We also took the opportunity to discuss the medium-to-long-term (that’s) the balance between our youth programme and academics.

“Those discussions will be ongoing because when the boys get back to Jamaica, we will continue to put some emphasis on that even during the tournament… we have to recognise that these are schoolboys and find the right balance between books and their football ambitions,” Reid reiterated.

“We are looking to see how this particular Under-17 programme can be used as the catalyst for medium-to-long-term approach in youth programmes both at the male and female levels and how we can integrate the schoolwork into the programme to minimise the disruption to the youngsters,” he noted.