As a student at the University of Florida, a flood of emails and debates with a few biased writers at the Independent Florida Alligator led to Bello’s first – and last – writing assignment for the paper.
After covering one lone orange and blue-related event, Bello retreated to a UF computer lab where he wrote Bryan Knoll, founder of Grassy.com (now CanesTime.com) and offered to provide insight on his beloved hometown team, while stuck in enemy territory.
With Florida en route to winning it’s first title and the Butch Davis-led Canes slipping due to probation, writing about ‘The U’ became therapy in the mid-nineties, where Bello attempted to make sense of the downward spiral with fellow fans at Grassy, aiming to be a ‘voice of the fan’.
Writing for CanesTime continued through the 2004 season, with articles picked up by both Yahoo! Sports, as well as feature articles in CanesTime Magazine.
At that point, Bello branched out, choosing to write exclusively for allCanes.com, in an effort to increase the legendary shop’s overall brand and to carve his own niche. allCanesBlog.com was officially launched in March 2006 and over the past several years has built a loyal and dedicated following, which prompted a complete blog overhaul in summer 2011.
Bello earned a B.A. in English from the University of Florida, yet has his diploma mounted in a University of Miami frame. Born and raised in Miami and a graduate of Westminster Christian in South Dade, there was a burning desire to leave the 305 for college — despite growing up on UM’s campus as an attendee of Ron Fraser’s Baseball Camp, attending ball games at Mark Light and spending Saturdays at the Orange Bowl watching the Canes run out of the smoke amongst friends and family.
Bello’s first collegiate stint was at the University of Alabama, where he lasted two semesters as a long-haired, aspiring guitar god and city-boy-fish-out-of-water.
Hurricane Andrew ravaged Miami the day fall classes began in Tuscaloosa and what the hurricane didn’t do to the city, the Crimson Tide did to the Canes in the Sugar Bowl months later; two weeks after Bello’s final farewell to the deep south.
Upon graduation, Bello followed his transplanted family west to San Diego, five years after the storm caused them to relocate. His first move was to get a job as a sports editor with FANSonly.com (then CSTV.com and now CBSSportsline.com) and eventually moved to the role of marketing manager.
HurricaneSports.com was part of the FANSonly Network, which allowed Bello a tie to Miami athletics that was lost in the cross country move — as well as sideline passes to the 27-24 victory over Florida State in 2000, which he still lists as one of his top five moments in life — right down to rushing the field after Wide Right III and grabbing a clump of orange turf from the midfield “U”, half of which he put in his pocket as a keepsake – the other he promptly ate for good luck, which to date he still considers the right play.
Outside of his allCanes.com efforts, Bello is a copywriter for a handful of clients, runs web efforts for PGA Tour professional and longtime friend Pat Perez, as well as lending his online marketing expertise to entrepreneurial friends and associates with upstart companies.
Bello also recently launched a personal site, AnOutsidersInsight.com, where he’ll touch on a slew of non-sports related topics, and in August 2013 was hired by Bleacher Report as a Featured Columnist where he’ll cover Miami Hurricanes athletics.
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