Kimble still impassioned about Loyola Marymount
As a precocious young adult, Bo Kimble bore the determined face of the Loyola Marymount basketball team in its most triumphant hour.
In middle age, he wonders why he couldn’t do it again.
“I’m so upset about this that I can’t even begin to tell you,” the former Lions scoring machine said from his home outside Philadelphia, nominating himself to be the school’s next coach. “At least twice I’ve mentioned to the powers that be that I would love the opportunity to get our program back on track. It’s just a disgrace that they wouldn’t even consider one of their most notable [graduates] at a time when they haven’t had one season over .500 in 18 years.”
Never mind that Kimble, who will turn 41 on April 9, has never coached at the collegiate level -- or any level, for that matter. Or that Loyola Marymount, though rarely a factor in the West Coast Conference race, occasionally finishes above .500.
Nothing if not confident, Kimble believes he could turn back the clock to 1990, when he and the rest of coach Paul Westhead’s high-scoring Lions made an emotional and improbable run through the NCAA tournament after teammate Hank Gathers collapsed on the court and died from a heart condition.
With Kimble shooting his first free throw of each game left-handed in tribute to his close friend and fellow Philadelphian, Loyola Marymount put lumps in the throats of basketball fans from coast to coast by storming past defending national champion Michigan, 149-115, in a second-round game and reaching the West Region final before losing to eventual champion Nevada Las Vegas.
“We just played from our hearts, and to make it to the final eight was like winning a championship for Loyola,” said Kimble, who led the nation in scoring by averaging 35.3 points per game for a team that averaged a record 122.4. “But let me be clear: With Hank Gathers, we would have won the championship, no doubt.”
For Kimble, a forgettable NBA career followed. After averaging more than 26 points per game in three seasons at Loyola Marymount, the eighth pick in the 1990 draft averaged only 5.5 points in 105 NBA games over three seasons with the Clippers, who had made him a lottery pick, and the New York Knicks.
Not that it humbled him.
“Unfortunately, they didn’t want me to do all the shootings and scoring that I did at Loyola Marymount,” Kimble said. “I was highly discouraged from shooting so much and scoring so much and that was very confusing to a dominant player who could make a shot from anywhere.”
If given a green light, Kimble said, in all seriousness, “I would have averaged about 45, probably, or at least 40. Without being arrogant or boastful, I know I probably would have led the NBA in scoring for five or six years.”
Instead, Kimble finished his career overseas, playing for teams in Europe and Asia, where he says the legend of Loyola Marymount preceded him.
“All over the world,” he said, “people know about Loyola Marymount. They know about Hank Gathers, they know about the left-handed free throws. We weren’t supposed to win one game without Hank and we won three.”
In 1999, after a back injury ended his career, the former NCAA scoring champion started the Bo Kimble Foundation, a nonprofit that transforms rundown buildings into affordable housing for low-income families. Through that and the Kimble Community Development Corp., he says, he has rehabilitated about 45 properties.
Next, Kimble says, he plans to start a foundation to provide CPR training to low-income families, an issue close to his heart since Gathers’ death.
“Proudly divorced” since last year, he notes sardonically, Kimble is father to a 13-year-old daughter, Alexandria, and a 1-year-old son, Gregory Ethan, but says he rarely sees them because their mothers forbid it.
“It’s a story from hell,” he said.
After splitting time for years between homes in Romansville, Pa., and Ladera Heights, a few miles from Loyola Marymount, Kimble spends most of his time these days in Pennsylvania, where since last fall he has mentored at-risk teens.
“I encourage them to better their lives and not risk their freedom by breaking the law and things like that,” he said of the youths. “I really enjoy it.”
What he also enjoys, about once a week, is playing with Gathers’ brother, Derrick, in a 35-and-over league at the Hank Gathers Recreation Center.
“I do great,” Kimble said. “It’s amazing. I could come back right now, I believe, and be a great role player and give a team 15 to 20 points a night. My shot is just as extraordinary as the old Bo’s. It hasn’t abandoned me yet.”
Nor has his alma mater, Loyola Marymount Athletic Director Bill Husak says, though he notes diplomatically in regard to his search for a new basketball coach, “I’m looking for somebody with proven head-coaching experience.”
Kimble doesn’t understand.
“I love the university,” he said, “but I’m very upset about this. I can’t say I’m proud of what the team has done since we left.”
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