IF YOU WANT TO coach, you have to start somewhere.

For Bo Kimble, "somewhere" is Shoreline, Wash., more than 2,000 miles from Dobbins Tech where he played basketball with the late Hank Gathers.

Kimble is a volunteer coach at Shoreline Community College, near Seattle.

Shoreline's head coach, Greg Turcott, wanted to employ the run-and-gun "System" Paul Westhead used at Loyola Marymount, where Kimble and Gathers took their act after winning the Public League title in 1985 and then spending a year at Southern Cal.

Turcott invited Kimble to Shoreline in December to give the team some pointers.

"I was thinking that maybe he'd be here 2 or 3 weeks," Turcott told the Associated Press.

Kimble had other ideas.

"People say in life you have to take two steps back to take 10 steps forward and I think this is one of those opportunities," Kimble said. "Plus they're running 'The System.' It would be more of a potential challenge if it was another system.''

Kimble played two seasons with the Clippers and nine games with the Knicks before closing out his professional career in the CBA.

He runs a foundation, 44 for Life, which focuses on cardiac arrest awareness - an homage to Gathers, who collapsed and died of a heart disorder while playing at Loyola in March of 1990. But he wants to coach, and sees Shoreline as the perfect steppingstone.

"Everyone needs a break or some good blessing of good fortune," he said. "All I can do is my part and commit myself to this profession and know that I will be a great coach."

 

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Bo knows coaching