People See Different Kimble : Basketball: His personality was overshadowed by that of his famous friend--Hank Gathers. Then Gathers died.

After Loyola Marymount’s NCAA basketball tournament run ended recently, Bo Kimble was cruising on Wilshire Boulevard in the Beverly Hills area. At a stoplight, a car pulled up. The driver did a double-take and rolled down his window.

“Bo?” he inquired.

Kimble nodded.

The guy hollered, “I love you, man. I just wanted you to know that.”

Kimble related the story with a smile.

“White guy, too,” he added. “Not that it matters. I have far more fans now, and not (just) basketball people. People from all over. Very few athletes in college have an opportunity for America to see their personality. It means a lot to me.”

The love affair between the public and Kimble is relatively new. People didn’t always love him.

Two years ago, when Loyola Marymount was winning its first West Coast Conference tournament, an opposing coach came through the press room fuming that the Lions, led by sophomore stars Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble, were guilty of numerous cheap shots and unsportsmanlike conduct.

“They’ve got a nice team, and those guys are good players,” the coach grumbled. “It’s too bad they’ve got to pull that low-class stuff.”

Now, it’s hard to find anyone who uses the term low-class in the same sentence with Kimble.

He has been a very good player for a long time, and proved it when he was physically sound for a full season after two years of nagging knee problems. He led the nation in scoring and the Lions into the final eight of the NCAA. Scouts project him as a probable lottery pick in the NBA draft.

But Kimble drew the nation’s attention for what he did after his boyhood friend, Gathers, died six weeks ago.

Almost immediately, Kimble became the Lions’ spokesman and symbol--first for the team’s pain, then for its resilience. He never made a wrong move. He never said the wrong thing. His words and deeds took on an eloquence that drew a nationwide response.

Gathers died on Sunday night, March 4. The next morning, at a news conference, a bleary-eyed Kimble broke down as he said, “Hank, I miss you so much.”

It was a genuine emotion and was televised on virtually every news program that night. A half hour later, he was talking calmly to the press and vowing to carry on for his friend.

At a memorial Mass in the school’s Gersten Pavilion the next day, he again made the perfect gesture, asking the overflow crowd for “one final ovation for Hank in his house.”

As the gym shook, he was embraced by the Gathers family, and he left the service with an arm around Gathers’ mother, Lucille. Again, Kimble was shown on most network news highlights.

In the NCAA tournament, he again came up with the appropriate touch: Gathers, who had problems shooting free throws, had shot them left-handed this season, so Kimble would shoot the first free throw of each game left-handed.

The first opportunity presented itself in Long Beach, during the second half of an emotional game against New Mexico State. Swish.

In the tournament, he went on to make all three left-handed free throws.

All the while, Kimble was talking to anyone and everyone, endearing himself to the media and fans in a whirlwind series of interviews and pep talks.

The word inspirational may be overused in sports, but Loyola’s spirit clearly inspired imaginations, with Kimble viewed as the leader. Kimble had become a bigger-than-basketball hero.

“Lots (of people) have come up to me and complimented our team,” Kimble said. “They really appreciate how I showed leadership. They say the message was an inspiration to everyone--it was not about winning and losing but how you play the game.”

In the eyes of those close to him, a more mature, thoughtful Kimble has emerged. Kimble said it was there all the time, waiting to be discovered.

“I think I’ve always been mature,” he said. “To people (watching), this brought it to the forefront.”

Said Loyola Coach Paul Westhead: “His greatest achievement after Hank’s death--he had his arms around Lucille Gathers and the family, helping them. Three hours later, he had his arms around his teammates, helping them.”

David Spencer, the former USC assistant coach who recruited Kimble and Gathers, and who now represents Kimble for the Management Plus agency, said the new perception of Kimble is “on the money.”

Spencer said that at Orlando, Fla., recently, where college seniors gathered for a series of all-star games, the hotel manager told him Kimble was “the most delightful player” there, and commented on how Kimble signed autographs for lines of kids and seemed to attract fans.

“It doesn’t surprise me in the least,” Spencer said. “He’s always been a sweetheart kid. He always had that kind of stuff. Unfortunately, it took a tragic occurrence to bring that out. I was proud of him and pleased for him, but I wasn’t surprised. I would’ve been surprised if he fell apart. Fortunately, (until recently) he was allowed to just be a normal college kid. The last six weeks, he was not.”

While in Orlando, Kimble accepted the Pete Maravich Award on Gathers’ behalf and was asked to speak at halftime of an Orlando Magic game.

“It seems like I’m the spokesman for Loyola and the Gathers family,” he said. “Everyone wants to hear what I say. It’s amazing how 17,000 people go silent. People want to hear.”

Kimble said he has “learned a lot about myself as a person” from the ordeal and thinks he has managed to put the last six weeks in perspective. And the cheerful side he has shown, he said, has not been forced.

“The way I am when I’m speaking is the way I really am,” he said. “The only time I was really bothered was the first press conference. I think my habits are a little more similar now to Hank’s. He was the outgoing one, so when I was around him, I was always more quiet. Now I feel myself being more aggressive, going out of my way to do some of the duties I’ve been asked.

“If I’m surprised at all, I’m surprised at the strength part of it, how I’m keeping myself upbeat. But when I remember Hank, that’s how I always think of him, laughing and getting on everybody.”

Kimble finds that, at odd moments, he flashes on a memory of Gathers. He had such an occurrence a few days ago, he said, when he visited KTLA-TV, where they had been interns and used to race each other back to campus.

“I looked in the rear-view mirror for him and he wasn’t there,” said Kimble. “I looked and I remembered . . . That was the closest (moment) to the normal life I was living, and he’s not there. That was my first taste that he wasn’t there. I’m sure there (will) be many others.”

The left-handed free throw took on such a life of its own that Kimble said he may retire it, or try his first NBA foul shot lefty and leave it at that.

In Loyola’s last game against eventual NCAA champion Nevada Las Vegas, Rebel center David Butler told Kimble he was rooting for him to make the free throw.

“He told me, ‘When you made it, I was clapping.’ It’s amazing how everyone wants me to shoot it,” Kimble said. “Everyone wants to see it. Obviously, it meant a lot to a lot of people, including myself.

“I don’t think I’m going to continue to do that. That was special for me, I was three for three, and that was college basketball. I don’t want to spoil a good moment. It won’t have the same effect for the fans and for me. I think I’ll just wear a patch or put his number on my sneaks.”

A strange twist to Kimble’s odyssey is that dealing with his best friend’s death has probably enhanced his standing in the draft.

“I don’t think there’s any question,” Spencer said.

Kimble said: “My agent said a couple of scouting reports said I was the strongest person in the draft as a human being. That made me feel good.”

Kimble will graduate May 12--his family will come from Philadelphia to attend--then will work out while anticipating the draft. Given the chance, he would like to stay in Los Angeles. He has also been contacted by Italian teams--an interesting option, he said, but only as a backup.

“Bo doesn’t want to go to Italy,” he said. “My whole career has been geared toward going to the NBA, not Europe.”

The NBA scouts’--and the public’s--impression of Kimble is a decided improvement over that opposing coach’s early opinion, in which Kimble came off as a bit of a punk.

“Hank and myself were good people, and I want people to see that,” Kimble said. “You can’t dribble the ball forever, (but) I think I’ll always be the same person I am right now.”