Bill Bell wouldn’t trade places with Adam Vinatieri, Morten Andersen or any of the other NFL kickers whose powerful legs now can mean the difference between making the playoffs or winning a Super Bowl.

And it’s not just because Bell, a former Kansas University kicker, is 56 years old and walking on a plastic hip.

“I was good for my time, but everything is relative,” said Bell, who kicked for KU for three years in the late ’60s and spent nearly three seasons in the NFL. “And, as a kicker, you have three times a game, on average, to go out and do your thing. And the best thing that can happen to you is going 3-for-3, and the worst thing that can happen is you went 1 for 3 or zero for 3. And it’s not like you have a second chance.

“There’s a lot of pressure. Do I miss it? Absolutely not. Do I love what I’m doing now? Yes.”

These days Bell is scoring points as director of buildings and grounds for Douglas County, overseeing maintenance of the county’s expanding lineup of juvenile detention units, fairgrounds facilities and other hard assets.

Since joining the county’s staff in 1988, Bell has become something of a utility player. He’s the guy officials call when a light bulb needs changing high above a desk in the appraiser’s office, or a woman’s keys fall down an elevator shaft at the Douglas County Courthouse, or the roof starts leaking at the juvenile detention center in North Lawrence.

‘Go-to guy’

“Bill was the go-to guy for extra points, and now he’s the go-to guy for anything that doesn’t fit into anybody else’s bailiwick — especially if it deals with maintenance or anything else that needs to be fixed,” said Craig Weinaug, county administrator. “It’s absolutely essential that people like me have people like Bill on their staffs.”

Seventeen years into his county career, Bell hasn’t forgotten his first professional job: kicker for the Atlanta Falcons.

Bill Bell, director of buildings and grounds for Douglas County, shows some memorabilia from his days of playing Kansas University football as a kicker. He was a member of the KU team that went to the Orange Bowl in 1969.

Find his football card — “I think they’re up to 32 cents apiece now,” he jokes — and the success is clear: A team record 79 points, 16 field goals and flawless 31-for-31 on extra points during the 1972 season.

Such stats might be enough to rake in a six- or seven-figure salary these days.

“Now, if you just make the team, I think they have to pay you, like, $175,000,” Bell said, laughing. “Back when I was playing, my first year I made $15,000 — and I thought I was somebody.”

Before entering the NFL, Bell certainly was somebody on Mount Oread.

He spent three seasons as a KU kicker and otherwise durable playmaker for some of KU’s most successful teams.

Step inside his office in the bowels of the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center — past court offices and around the corner from the jury assembly room — and there, on the far wall, is a reminder of perhaps the greatest moment in KU football history: A team photo of the 1968 Jayhawks.

That team — led by Bobby Douglass, John Riggins, John Zook and others — played for the national championship in the 1969 Orange Bowl. Bell handled punting and place-kicking chores, averaging 40.4 yards on eight punts and connecting on both extra points in the 15-14 loss to Penn State.

Kicking K-State

While the Orange Bowl remains his greatest memory, Bell won’t soon forget his greatest kick. It came his sophomore season during the homecoming game against Kansas State University.

It wasn’t just that the kick, with about 6 minutes left, gave KU a 17-16 victory against the cross-state rival.

6News video: County’s go-to guy once was gridiron’s go-to guy

“That was the first year Pepper Rogers was here, and it was also the first year that Vince Gibson was at K-State,” Bell said. “And Vince Gibson was a fiery coach from down South, also — ‘We gonna do this,’ and ‘We gonna do that’ — and he said, ‘If we lose in Lawrence, we gonna walk back to Manhattan.’ So this game just wasn’t the usual rivalry.

“That was fun. … It was quite a night.”

This season, a KU kicker had such a good day that he wiped one of Bell’s KU records from the books. Scott Webb successfully kicked nine extra points in KU’s 63-14 drubbing of Toledo, enough to beat the eight conversions scored by Bell back in 1968 against New Mexico.

Then again, Bell had a little more work to do. He had taken the field during that 68-7 victory as a punter, place-kicker, quarterback and outside linebacker.

He’d missed on the fifth of his nine extra-point attempts, and there wouldn’t be a 10th. That’s because, as the third-string quarterback, Bell had been running the offense for the fourth quarter, and had run in the team’s 10th touchdown himself.

Fair fatigue

He couldn’t even manage to spike the ball, given the fatigue.

“I was dead,” said Bell, who managed to convince Rogers to send someone else in to attempt the conversion. “I mean, I could barely get up.”

These days, Bell’s longest endurance test comes at the height of summer. The Douglas County Free Fair means two weeks of scrambling to set up the fairgrounds, another two weeks of 6 a.m.-to-10 p.m. days during the fair and, finally, two weeks cleaning up after the fair.

And Bell wouldn’t have it any other way. Working for the county offers a chance to perform services that benefit the community, something far better than the “what-have-you-done-for-me-today” world of football.

“I remember, when I took this job, the staff was saying, ‘Wait ’til fair time. You’ll think you’re gonna die,'” Bell said. “And I thought, ‘Nope. I’ve already been there, done that,’ and I don’t think the fair’s gonna hurt me.

“I might get a little tired, but I’m not gonna fall down.”