Montgomery Bell Academy (MBA) is a preparatory day school for boys in grades 7 through 12 in

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

. The school is located in the Whitland Area Neighborhood.

History

MBA was established in 1867 in the aftermath of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. It is the successor to two schools: the Western Military Institute, which Sam Davis, the "Boy Hero of the Confederacy", attended, and the former

University of Nashville University of Nashville was a private university in Nashville, Tennessee. It was established in 1806 as Cumberland College. It existed as a distinct entity until 1909; operating at various times a medical school, a four-year military college, a ...

. The school's board operates under the corporate title, "Board of Trustees of the

", although the university was disbanded in 1909. From 1870 to 1875, former Confederate general

Edmund Kirby Smith Edmund Kirby Smith (May 16, 1824March 28, 1893) was a General officers in the Confederate States Army, Confederate States Army Four-star rank, general, who oversaw the Trans-Mississippi Department (comprising Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, western L ...

was the chancellor of the University of Nashville, which comprised both a two-year college operating as the University of Nashville, and MBA, the preparatory high school and grammar school. In 1875, a financial crisis and a donation from the Peabody Fund caused an organizational separation of the university and the preparatory school. The university used the proceeds of the Peabody Fund and was operated under a new board of trustees under the name of Peabody Normal College, later called the George Peabody College for Teachers. The board of trustees of the University of Nashville continued to operate MBA as a preparatory school. From about 1880 until 1915, the school operated across University Street from the campus of the former

. In 1915, the school bought a West End Avenue estate known as Totomoi from the Tinsley family, and the campus moved soon after. The military nature of one of the predecessors notwithstanding, under its current name it has always operated as a civilian institution, and as a day school rather than a boarding school. The school is named in honor of Montgomery Bell, a

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

native who made his fortune as the early 19th century "ironmaster" of

Middle Tennessee Middle Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee that composes roughly the central portion of the state. It is delineated according to state law as 41 of the state's 95 counties. Middle Tennessee contains the state's capital an ...

and whose will endowed it, with the stipulation that it forever be an all-male institution. In the 1970s, the school's enrollment surged as white parents withdrew their children from racially integrated public schools. In 1980, the headmaster Michael Drake told a newspaper "Every time the court rules in the Metro desegregation case, our enrollment goes way up."

Campus and resources

Montgomery Bell Academy's campus consists of eight academic and administrative buildings, a gymnasium, and numerous on-campus athletic facilities. Montgomery Bell Academy also owns and operates a 24" telescope in

McMinnville, Tennessee McMinnville is the largest city in and the county seat of Warren County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 13,788 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. It was named after Governor Joseph McMinn. Geography McMinnville is locate ...

at Long Mountain. This site is noted for having the least ambient light in the

Southeastern United States The Southeastern United States, also known as the American Southeast or simply the Southeast, is a geographical List of regions in the United States, region of the United States located in the eastern portion of the Southern United States and t ...

, making conditions favorable for

astrophotography Astrophotography, also known as astronomical imaging, is the photography or imaging of astronomical objects, celestial events, or areas of the night sky. The first photograph of an astronomical object (the Moon) was taken in 1839, but it was no ...

. Annually, the Montgomery Bell Academy faculty and student body journey to the facility to hold the school's annual Leadership Retreat. On the facility grounds, there are two football fields, a lake, a high ropes course, and a low ropes course. The main feature of the campus (besides the observatory) is the large cliff to the west of the building. Students are challenged each year to rappel down the cliff and climb up the cliff as well. On occasion, the school's climbing club comes to the facility to practice all-natural

rock climbing Rock climbing is a climbing sports discipline that involves ascending climbing routes, routes consisting of natural rock in an outdoor environment, or on artificial resin climbing walls in a mostly indoor environment. Routes are documented in c ...

. In 2011, Montgomery Bell Academy added the new Lowry Building in late December. In 2012, the school's new building, the Wallace Building, was completed. In addition to these new structures, a geothermal heating and cooling system was added. The school has also constructed new, porous parking lots to facilitate the new irrigation system. Montgomery Bell Academy also has exchange links with other boys' schools throughout the English-speaking world; these include

Eton College Eton College ( ) is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing boarding school, boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated Prime Mini ...

and

Winchester College Winchester College is an English Public school (United Kingdom), public school (a long-established fee-charging boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) with some provision for day school, day attendees, in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It wa ...

in England, Kearsney College and

Michaelhouse Michaelhouse is a full boarding senior school for boys founded in 1896. It is located in the Balgowan, KwaZulu-Natal, Balgowan valley in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The Spear’s Schools Index 2025 reco ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, and The Southport School,

The King's School, Parramatta The King's School is an Education in Australia#Non-government schools, independent Anglican Church of Australia, Anglican, Pre-school education, early learning, primary school, primary and secondary school, secondary day and boarding school, bo ...

and, most recently,

Melbourne Grammar School Melbourne Grammar School is an Australian private school, private Anglican Church of Australia, Anglican Day school, day and boarding school. It comprises a co-educational preparatory school from Prep to Year 6 and a middle school and senior s ...

in Australia,

Christ's College, Christchurch Christ's College, Canterbury is an independent Anglican secondary day and boarding school for boys, located in the city centre of Christchurch, New Zealand. Founded in 1850 by Reverend Henry Jacobs in Lyttelton as a school for early settlers, t ...

in New Zealand and The

Raffles Institution Raffles Institution (RI) is an independent educational institution in Singapore. Founded in 1823, it is the oldest school in the country. It provides secondary education for boys only from Year 1 to Year 4, and pre-university education for both b ...

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

and

are similar to MBA through discipline, dress code, and having an all-male student body. Notable individuals who have spoken to the student body include

Michael Crichton John Michael Crichton (; October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008) was an American author, screenwriter and filmmaker. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and over a dozen have been adapted into films. His literary works heavil ...

Ted Turner Robert Edward Turner III (born November 19, 1938) is an American entrepreneur, television producer, media proprietor, and Philanthropy, philanthropist. He founded the CNN, Cable News Network (CNN), the first 24-hour United States cable news, ...

Peyton Manning Peyton Williams Manning (born March 24, 1976) is an American former professional American football, football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons. Nicknamed "the Sheriff", he spent 14 seasons with the In ...

Charles Townes Charles Hard Townes (July 28, 1915 – January 27, 2015) was an American physicist. Townes worked on the theory and application of the maser, for which he obtained the fundamental patent, and other work in quantum electronics associated with b ...

, and Robert Orr, Jr. A statue of Sam Davis was installed on the school grounds, until 2020. In 2021, MBA completed construction of a new 200,000-square-foot athletic and wellness center, the Burkholder Wellness Center. The project also included a new football stadium and lacrosse field.

Athletics

Montgomery Bell Academy's sports offerings include

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

lacrosse Lacrosse is a contact team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game w ...

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

and more. The school has won the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association's football championship fourteen times, from 1915 to 2014. The school has also gained recognition for its Cross Country team. Since its inception in 1995, the team has claimed a total of thirteen state championships. Most notably, the team claimed a perfect sweep in the state championship of 2010, in which all top five places were claimed by the school's runners. The school's

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

team was able to claim the state title of 2013 over the

Gulliver Preparatory School Gulliver Preparatory School or simply Gulliver Prep, is a private co-educational school. Its management offices are in Kendall, Florida, a census-designated place in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Its previous administrative offices were in Coral ...

by a margin of 5-to-4. The team also hosts a spring tennis tournament, entitled the Francis Carter Invitational. The MBA Soccer Program is led by the former Coach of Waterford United (Irish Premier League), Giles Cheevers. MBA Soccer captured the 2015 TSSAA Tennessee State Soccer Championship (DII-AA) with a 3-0 win over Christian Brothers High School (CBHS).

Debate and forensics

In addition to its academics programs, Montgomery Bell Academy has a separate debate and forensics program. The school offers

Policy Debate Policy debate is an American form of debate competition in which teams of two usually advocate for and against a resolution that typically calls for policy change by the United States federal government. It is also referred to as cross-examinat ...

to its students. Annually, Montgomery Bell Academy hosts its speech and debate tournament, the Southern Bell Forum. The tournament has a unique ranking system, where speaker points are accounted for in the final ranking system.

Visual and performing arts

The Montgomery Bell Academy theater program has won awards at the Tennessee Theater Association. The school also performs its annual student-directed one-acts in April and May, where it invites the students to write and direct their original scripts. MBA also performs its annual musical with students from the Harpeth Hall School. The high school orchestra is known as the MBA Sinfonia.

In popular culture

Montgomery Bell Academy graduate Thomas Schulman, class of 1968, wrote the screenplay for the 1989

motion picture A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, since ...

Dead Poets Society ''Dead Poets Society'' is a 1989 American coming-of-age drama film directed by Peter Weir and written by Tom Schulman. The film, starring Robin Williams, is set in 1959 at a fictional elite boarding school called Welton Academy, and tells ...

'', which depicts a fictional school patterned after Montgomery Bell Academy.

Robin Williams Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and comedie ...

portrayed a character based on Sam Pickering, one of Schulman's teachers during his years at Montgomery Bell Academy.

Notable alumni

*Lt. Gen.

Frank Maxwell Andrews Frank Maxwell Andrews (February 3, 1884 – May 3, 1943) was a senior Officer (armed forces), officer of the United States Army and one of the founders of the United States Army Air Forces, which was later to become the United States Air Fo ...

, aviation pioneer, World War II European commander,

Andrews Air Force Base Andrews Air Force Base (Andrews AFB, AAFB) is the airfield portion of Joint Base Andrews, which is under the jurisdiction of the United States Air Force (USAF). In 2009, Andrews Air Force Base merged with Naval Air Facility Washington to form ...

namesake * Will Bartholomew, NFL fullback * Ridley Wills II, author, historian * Jere Baxter, railroad entrepreneur * Robin Beard, former member of U.S. House of Representatives *

David Briley Clifton David Briley (born January 8, 1964) is an American politician. A Democrat, he was the eighth mayor of Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County. He was elected in 2015 as vice-mayor and was sworn in as acting mayor after Megan Barry's ...

, former mayor of Nashville, TN * Madison Smartt Bell, novelist * Ty Chandler,

Running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive American football plays#Offensive terminology, handoffs from the quarterback to Rush (American football)#Offense ...

for the

Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. The Vikings compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. Founded in 1960 as ...

* R. A. Dickey, professional baseball pitcher and 2012 Cy Young Award winner *

Jacob M. Dickinson Jacob McGavock Dickinson (January 30, 1851 – December 13, 1928) was United States Secretary of War under President William Howard Taft from 1909 to 1911. He was succeeded by Henry L. Stimson. He was an attorney, politician, and businessman ...

, U.S. Secretary of War * Frank Drowota, former Chief Justice, Tennessee Supreme Court *

Morgan Entrekin Morgan Entrekin is the president (corporate title), president and publisher of Grove/Atlantic Inc. Books in New York City. He is one of six owners of the publishing company. He is from Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville, Tennessee. Timeline Entr ...

, Grove/Atlantic, Inc. president * J. Frederick Essary (1881-1942), journalist * Jesse Hill Ford, novelist *

Bill Frist William Harrison Frist (born February 22, 1952) is an American physician, businessman, conservationist and policymaker who served as a United States Senator from Tennessee from 1995 to 2007. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as ...

, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader * Thomas Frist, founder of

Hospital Corporation of America HCA Healthcare, Inc. (historically known as Hospital Corporation of America) is an American for-profit operator of health care facilities that was founded in 1968. It is based in Nashville, Tennessee, and, as of May 2020, owned and operated 186 ...

* Brendan Kyle Hatcher, U.S. Diplomat * Hunter Hillenmeyer, Chicago Bears linebacker *

John Jay Hooker John Jay Hooker, Jr. (August 24, 1930 – January 24, 2016) was an American Lawyer, attorney, entrepreneur, political Social gadfly, gadfly and perennial candidate from Nashville, Tennessee, who was the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic ...

, attorney, entrepreneur, politician * E. Bronson Ingram II, American businessman and billionaire * Madison Jones, novelist * Kevin M. Kruse, historian * Oliver Kuhn, athlete * Alan LeQuire, sculptor *

Ingle Martin Harry Ingle Martin IV (born August 15, 1982) is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) during the late 2000s. Martin played college football for the Florida Gators and Furm ...

Football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

player ( NFL

Quarterback The quarterback (QB) is a position in gridiron football who are members of the offensive side of the ball and mostly line up directly behind the Lineman (football), offensive line. In modern American football, the quarterback is usually consider ...

) * Penn Murfee,

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Moder ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("Pitch (baseball), pitches") the Baseball (ball), baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of out (baseball), retiring a batter (baseball), batter, ...

for the

Seattle Mariners The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. The Mariners compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League West, West Division. The team joined the American ...

* Tom Neff, CEO and founder of The Documentary Channel * Samuel Pickering, essayist *Admiral Joseph W. Prueher, a former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command and Ambassador to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. * Marcel Reed, college football quarterback *

Grantland Rice Henry Grantland Rice (November 1, 1880 – July 13, 1954) was an American sportswriter and poet known as the "Dean of American Sports Writers". He coined the famous phrase that it was not important whether you “won or lost, but how you playe ...

, early 20th-century American sportswriter * Tom Santi, NFL tight end * Charles Sawyers, physician-scientist *

Brandt Snedeker Brandt Newell Snedeker (born December 8, 1980) is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour. He won the 2012 FedEx Cup with a victory in the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club. Following this victory, he moved into the top t ...

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Golfer * Thomas Schulman, author of ''

'' * Richard Speight, Jr., actor *

Bill Wade William James Wade Jr. (October 4, 1930 – March 9, 2016), often referred to during his playing career as Billy Wade, was an American professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for the Los Angeles Rams ...

, NFL quarterback * John Warner White, WWII Bombardier, memoirist, author *

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, 10th Mayor of Metropolitan Nashville
/ref>

References

External links

MBA websiteBoyd, Nannie Seawell, Collection of Papers Relating to Montgomery Bell, 1853-1939
Tennessee State Library and Archives {{authority control 1866 establishments in Tennessee Boys' schools in Tennessee Educational institutions established in 1866 Preparatory schools in Tennessee Private high schools in Tennessee Private middle schools in Tennessee Schools in Nashville, Tennessee