Athlete Academy Success Stories: Harris Bell

We’ve decided to kick off a new series “The Athlete Academy Success Stories”, focussing on some of The Athlete Academy Alumni, retracing their steps from when they first joined the program up to where they are now! The first of our Athlete Academy Success Stories is Rugby Player Harris Bell.

When Harris first came to us at The Athlete Academy back in 2021, we were still operating out of our second venue at Crossfit Murrayfield!

Harris was a raw youngster who participated in both Rugby and Kayaking, but his main goal was to increase his speed, strength and power to improve his rugby performances with Royal High School.

Harris joined The Athlete Academy on our Group Coaching Membership for 2 sessions per week and soon displayed our most important training principle: consistency, being crowned the Athlete Of The Month for October 2021.

It wasn’t long before he started accumulating some of the key Athlete Academy milestones, when he got 50 sessions under his belt, joining The 50 Club in July 2022.

He then became our 3rd ever Athlete Academy Centurion, reaching 100 sessions in July 2023.

All the hard work at The Athlete Academy were showing up on the rugby pitch, with further opportunities starting to present themselves, such as Harris being invited into the Scottish Rugby Pathway sessions for the Edinburgh Region and playing 10 times in the Regional Games. Harris kept working away in the background, becoming the first athlete to accumulate 200 sessions and join The Athlete Academy Hall of Fame

He was also invited to trial for potential scholarships at some of Scotland’s top Private School Rugby Programs, culminating in the offer of a Rugby Scholarship at Strathallan School.

So in October of 2024, we waved Harris off as he graduated The Athlete Academy program to progress on to be coached by another great S&C coach in Scott Webb (former mentee of Rob under the Collaborate Sports Effective LTAD program).

Strathallan proved to be the environment Harris needed to progress his athleticism for rugby even further. His contributions helped Strathallan to the final of the the 2025 Scottish Schools Cup at Murrayfield Stadium, where they met a strong George Watsons side in the final.

Despite the defeat, no doubt it was a lifelong memory with Harris getting the chance to run out onto the hallowed Murrayfield Stadium Pitch.

However, after the disappointment of the Schools Cup Final defeat, the season ended on a victorious note as Harris and Strathallan celebrated securing the Under 18 Open Competition Title.

However, that isn’t the end of the story for Harris…

We recently received the fantastic news that Harris has been offered a Tier 1 Scholarship to pursue both his development as a Rugby player and his studies down at the prestigious Hartpury University in Gloucester.

We love this because it’s living proof of one of our biggest priorities – that consistency is the key! Harris displayed this consistency in accummulating the milestones of 50, 100 and 200 sessions with The Athlete Academy!

So we continue to watch this space as we wish Harris all the best as he continues to pursue his dream of playing professional rugby!

Here’s what Harris’ dad Malcolm had to say about his experience with us

“Thanks to the team at Athletic Academy, for helping my son Harris achieve his rugby scholarship at Strathallan school, 200 plus sessions and he enjoyed every one of them. Fantastic team of coaches past and present!”