By BUTCH HARMON
Basketball is one of the best team games around, and it can also be one of the best ways that a family can bond and stay close.
That is the case with current Michigan State University star and former East Lansing High School standout Klarissa Bell and her family. Bell, a former Miss Basketball, is very close to her stepbrothers MJ and Mikhail Myles, who are varsity basketball standouts at Corunna High School. Bell’s older brother, Devlin Bell, was a basketball standout at East Lansing High School and Lansing Community College, while younger brother Westin Myles is a freshman at East Lansing who is already making a name for himself on the varsity team.
Not only has Klarissa Bell spent many an hours playing basketball with her younger brothers, but her basketball career was also spurred on by her stepfather, Monty Myles.
“My stepdad is really big into coaching, and he got me into basketball,” Klarissa said. “I started playing soccer when I was young, but my stepdad convinced me to go out for the Ballers, a local AAU team.”
Once she started playing basketball, she had no shortage of teammates or opponents for games of one-on-one or two-on-two.
“When we were younger, we had a full outdoor basketball court next to our house,” Bell said. “Now we play whenever we get the chance. Sometimes we go to the Breslin Center to play against each other.”
Bell was one of the finest high school basketball players to ever come out of the Lansing area and is in the middle of her senior year with the Spartans.
Brothers MJ and Mikhail are currently enjoying big seasons of their own in Corunnna.
MJ is a senior who recently scored his 1,000th career point in a game against Lake Fenton. The game was stopped after MJ reached the milestone, and there was a ceremony to acknowledge his achievement. “That was real cool,” MJ said. “It [1,000 points] was always something I wanted to do. I was able to do it in front of my friends and family, and I was given a basketball signed by all of my teammates.”
The brothers have been playing together for three years on the varsity at Corunna, something that has been special for MJ. “It has been a lot of fun,” he said. “My brother is also a very good player. We really have a lot of fun with it. We played on different teams here and there growing up, and that was fun, but it’s much different now. It’s much bigger hype playing varsity basketball.”
Playing basketball and going to class at Michigan State, Klarissa does not have much of an opportunity to see her younger brothers play. The brothers, however, do check out their sister’s games as much as they can. “I go to almost all of her home games that I can make it to,” MJ said. “Today I didn’t go, but it was on ESPN.”
While their schedules keep the family members apart, basketball has a way of bringing them together.
“We are definitely an athletic family,” Mikhail said. “It’s something that we all have in common that we can talk about. It’s kind of hard with us being here in Corunna, but every once in a while we play a family game at the Breslin.”
Making the schedule even more hectic is that Westin Myles is playing on the varsity at East Lansing High School.
“He [Westin] is very good,” MJ said. “He’s very big for his age. He’s about six foot two and he’s a point guard.”
“I see Westin at East Lansing more just because it’s closer,” Klarissa said. “Westin is tall, and he has great ball-handling skills.”
While it is harder to see each other during the basketball season, the sport has kept and always will keep them close.
“When we were younger especially, we played in a lot of the same tournaments,” Klarissa said. “Basketball brings us all together, and we have something in common to talk about. We have always enjoyed going to each other’s sports events no matter if it was football. It’s a commonality that we all have.”