Kimble to Aid Gathers’ Family

Bo Kimble, the eye of an emotional hurricane that carried the Loyola Marymount Lions within a game of the Final Four, promises to do whatever he can financially to sustain Hank Gathers’ family.

Kimble, who played high school ball with Gathers on a city championship basketball team at Philadelphia’s Dobbins Tech, revealed Tuesday that he will provide Gathers’ family with financial assistance after he signs what promises to be a lucrative NBA contract.

“I will try my best to make sure that they’ll be able to live a good life,” said Kimble, who had not immediately discussed the matter with Gathers’ mother Lucille.

“The Gathers family is like family to me. I would be willing to help them with their essential needs. If it comes out of my pocket, that’s OK, because I’m a very giving person.

“There’s no way I’m going to be making as much money as a Michael Jordan, but if I do, everyone in the Gathers family will be OK financially.”

The players and coaches from the 1989-90 Loyola Marymount basketball team took one final ride together Tuesday, on a Los Angeles County fire engine that took them to a campus pep rally.

Kimble grabbed a microphone and told an upbeat crowd of about 1,500 students and faculty: “I’ve decided to quit basketball and become a fireman.”

They can laugh again on the grassy Westchester campus, less than a month after enduring the darkest moment in the school’s athletic history, when Gathers collapsed on the court during a conference tournament game and died less than two hours later from a diseased heart.

“I’ve been holding up pretty well,” said Kimble, whose college career ended Sunday in Oakland with Loyola’s loss to Nevada-Las Vegas after three emotionally charged victories in the NCAA Tournament.

“I had my moments coming back from the game. . . . I’m a lot stronger than I expected, but throughout my life, I think there are going to be different stages where it’s going to hit me all over again--like on the plane. But overall, I’m fine.”

Throughout the tournament, Kimble wore his heart on his shirt--and on the free throw line. Except for the Alabama game, when he didn’t get to the foul line, he took his first free throw of each game left-handed and made all three. It was to honor Gathers, whose free throw deficiency caused him to switch from his right hand to his left.

“It wasn’t whether I made it or not. That was just a small part of why I was taking it.” Kimble said. “I didn’t think about having to make it, or about the momentum of the game, or whether it was going to be the turning point of the game, because it was just my special moment that I took out to think about Hank Gathers. As each day progressed, I didn’t even work on it because I didn’t care if I made it or missed it.”

Kimble, who will graduate in May and then go into the NBA, made one more symbolic gesture to honor the memory of his late friend during the rally. A backboard was set up behind the podium where each of the players and coaches took one more bow.

Because they could not partake in the ritual of cutting down the netting at the end of the West Coast Conference tournament--which was canceled in the wake of Gathers’ death--Kimble did the honors Tuesday. And he made the last snip left-handed.

“A lot has changed in the last few weeks,” Coach Paul Westhead said. “These players have been around one another on a continual basis, putting their arms around each other and hugging each other in practice.

“They would do things like let someone else in line ahead of them at dinner, things you wouldn’t expect of the normal college player. It’s almost like that’s another team entirely. And that will be a harder team for me to let go of, because you don’t ever get teams like that.”