Coat Check | Bo Kimble

I'm Matt Murphy back with another episode of coat Check right here on the seventy Sixers Podcast Network or on your Coach Check in the Delaware Bluecoats feed as well.

It's the same drill that we've been doing for a few episodes, with Bluecoats Ambassador of Basketball Joe Richmond bringing a whole lot of extra energy to the show as we chat with a special guest, and it is Bo Kimball this time around, a Philadelphia native, a college basketball star, and an NBA teammate of who else but new seventy six Ers head coach Doc Rivers. Let's get to it.

We are pleased to be joined by a Philadelphia basketball Staple, a former NBA player who starred at Loyola Marrimount University in LA prior to that, Bo Kimball Bo, thanks for joining us, my pleasure. Thank you guys so much for having me. So let's have some music. It's a fair fit at all that man, you got that, Joe, here we go, so let's take the people back right away.

How long have you two known each other? Starting with you, Joe, you can give us some insight there, Oh your Bold Man, Thanks for coming on to the day, man, and always good to have you. Matt Man. I don't know if both remembers, but I first remember him at a playground called Ridge Ridgeway Playground in South Philly, thirteenth and Broader right off from Broader Fitzwater and him and the team he was playing when he came down there, man, and we did not never see nothing like that. Like Bow

was like stepp befoot step man. He was on a foot across half court. He was let it go and just kind of followed his career from high school. And but for me it was amazing because he was that dude. Wasn't those social media back then? So you heard from guys if Bold was just one of those names along

with another magical name as you can all. Well though your connection with Joe goes back that fall are, Yeah, it does, and we and we were blessed to reconnect to a mutual friend who was doing a camp where my son was actually participating, Ethan Kimball, and so I went from watching my son play to talking to the kids before the workout started. The AAU workout with Sam Ryns and uh and then me and Joe reconnected. So

it was great to see Joe. I've been blessed the last thirty years, been doing a lot of community work, you know, giving back to the community. That's how I was raised. And it was great reconnected with Joe, and so I'm looking forward to doing some stuff with him and the Blue Coats and the Sixers and their very their future. Well, it's great to have you on the show. Let's give a quick rundown before we get into it for our viewers on YouTube or our listeners on the

seventy Sixers podcast network. We were going to talk about some of your seventy Sixers connections and then we'll get into Philadelphia basketball as a whole and that entire scene before transitioning into Bow's journey and playing career a little bit, and then at the buzzer some final few fun questions. Again at the buzzer, but let's start with the Philadelphia seventy six Ers, with the Bluecoats being the G League

affiliate with the Sixers. For those who don't know, it's it's current right now as we record this in early October. What is your connection to the new seventy sixers head coach Doc Rivers? Well, first of all, I was part of a three way trade. I played three years with Doc Rivers, two years with the Clippers, and we got traded together from the Clippers to the Knicks in nineteen ninety three and shared a shared a I think it

was Christmas, our Thanksgiving with his family. So Doc is not only a great coach and all the things that he's done in his young coaching career, but he's even a better person. So I'm extremely extremely excited. You know what Doc can bring to our team to really help our younger players developed. We really have a very unique and talented team. And I love the way that with Doc did with the with the Clippers. You know, he had a lot of ball movement, bodies and the ball moving.

He had a really a great team, um and I think that with his expertise, he'll be able to bring that kind of ball movement to allow Ben Simmons to get in the lane more allowed b to pretty much stay on that box. But more importantly, Doc will hold the players accountable and that's more important than anything else to put the players in the best situation to succeed. And being a former player, I think God played at

least seventeen years in the league. He knows the game inside and out and be able to pull out the best in all of our sixer players. Yeah, I want to say, like, you've been with a man and your

career is just amazing. Man. And he really from Philly, played at Dobbins, played for the legendary Yank and uh, you know, did your thing and who would have thought the way life kind of rolls around, you would reconnect with Doc playing with him back and when those days when you got drafted and played it with the Clippers and now he's our head coach of our hot health team the seventies sixs and you're talking about all these different things that he does in the perfect world, what

does that look like a boot Kimble they say, like, yo, my bach like and also you do so many of these interviews like do you see yourself on the other side of this too? So in the perfect world, what does that look like for boot Kimble Man, Well, first of all, I want to be one of the millions of people to welcome Doc Rivers to the city of brotherly Love. And so this is a huge, huge sports town. And as you know how our fans are and all the different sports, you know, they support our they love

hard and so. But you know, being grown up here in Philadelphia, the Sixers have always been my favorite team. Even though I've been out on the West Coast in

LA for thirty five years, everything is Philly. First. What I'm excited about in the perfect world is I've been trying to reach out to Doc and I'm trying to track me down right here right because i know that I'm gonna if possible one joined his coaching staff, rather's player development, any any way he could see fit that I can help just work with the guys on and

off the court. You know, growing up as a young player in the NBA, there's a lot of stuff that's on the court, off the school, how to deal with all of those different stressors and how to put yourself in the best situation to succeed. So rather player development on his coaching staff, hopefully doing some of the Sixers announcement stuff I've been I have a degree in communication, and as you can see, this is what I do this pretty well. So I'm just excited that he's he's

gonna be with the Sixers. I'm excited for this new chapter in our life. And I hope some way, somehow, and I don't mind begging. I'm trying to be this to the championship and anything I can do to help, I'm on board. Well, from from interview to a job. Hey, Doc's my man, And like I said, I have a lot of great respect for Doc on and off the court.

I know he's going to make our team better. We got the right tools right now to go deep into the playoffs, and I know the Doc would do the necessary stuff if we need some trades to strengthen the team. Doc is going to do whatever it needs to be done to get us closer to that championship ring. And damn it, you know I'm a diehard. I want our six Is to win a championship man. Anything I can do to help, I'm on board. I love it and it's great to have someone with a connection, a personal

connection to the new head coach join us. The timing of this couldn't be better. Let's navigate towards Philadelphia Basketball a little bit as a whole. I've seen you mentioned in interviews before the quote unquote Philly brand of basketball that contributed to some of your success as a player, or most of your success as a player. What does

that Philly brand of basketball mean to you? Philadelphia Basketball and one of the announcers and they referred to Jimmy Butler in the playoff when he scored forty against the Lakers. He said, Jimmy Butler was playing bullyball. Well, North phillyball.

Is that really super physical style of play. I was the kind of player that I had a finesse game, but I also had a power game, meaning that I had no problem taking on shot, dunking on shad, getting into the rem you know, drawing the foul, being knocked around. That's what a Philly inner city urban ball is all about.

Perfect example would be Hank Gathers get his first shots blocked to get playing against Shaquille O'Neill and Stanley Robberts to seven footers, Hank gets his first seven shots, block walk off the court with forty eight points and eighteen rebounds, and every NBA team was there to watch him play. So that's phillyball. It doesn't matter what your accolades are. When this ball go up, we're gonna kick your butt.

And for me, with the kind of work ethic that I had, and as well as Hay, a lot of the stuff is mental because when you put the work in and you and coming up from feeling the way I came up, I played against so many older, better,

faster players. So once I got among players that was my own age, they didn't know it, but I being before the ball went up, because I knew that if I can hold my own when I was from ten to eighteen, hold my own against grown men ten to fifteen years older than me, stronger than me, better than me, faster than me, what do you think I'm going to do to you? And that's just how the mentality add that I had. But again that's all through my journey

of coming up at what are your playground? Coming through the Sunny Hill League in order to be the best, you gotta play the best. And in Philadelphia basketball, we had growing up the best players you could ever imagine going up against. And that was part of our journey. And man, I just want to say, bo you you kind of wrapped it up in such a beautiful way. So I just want to add, you look at the bubble and you see we're in some challenging times. But you know, they had a playoff pool and our sixes

was in that playoffs. But outside of our six has been in the playoffs. We had some Philly guys in the playoffs too. And you know it's something that's still playing right now for the Lakers as a PA guy still playing over there on the heat and Derek Jones, um, you know you guys like you Flip Murray, Lionel Simmons, M. I can go on and on that laid the foundation, the late great Um Lewis Lloyd, that laid the foundation

from them Philly type of guys. How does that pride come to you when you see a Kyle Lowry guy here but NBA championship that one of our old the Marquis Twins is about to get a championship if they make it through the night. How does that make you feel to see most of our guys now in the playoffs, playing in playoff type basketball, How does that make you feel? Set in that foundation and seeing this now, Yeah, I was very happy to see Kyroll Lowry get a championship

with to To. That was nice to see. Now. That was, of course after our sixers loss. But that was hard to stomach at shot that uh, that went off the top of the backboard. But the point is, you know, he being a Philly guy, you root for other Philly guys.

It was brought to my attention that when Hank Etherson I went to on the West coast of Loyal to Merrimont and had so much success at USC and Loyal to Merrimont scoring you know, thirty a game and our team scoring one hundred and twenty five a game and breaking all those records. We started a trend of some of the best players starting to say, hey, you know what Bowen, Hank went you know out of state for success.

They people started to migrate out of the town. Lionel Simmons was a perfect example, and as well as Doug Overton, guys that did stay local, great players, Doug had a twelve thirteen year NBA career and Lionel Played had a great career. So Philadelphia ball, if you can, if you can withstand the growing up in Philly ball, you can take your game anywhere in the world on the greatest thing, and you do not have to worry about compromising your game on the court or any situation that you have

to deal with off the court. But I'm very happy for all the success of the guys that have stronger Enbent careers than I did. But again, you know, I'm very blessed that I was able to have the kind of success in college where I was able to average thirty five points a game and have the records that I have today. All right, perfect segue, because you just talked about your college career. Let's talk about your journey bow and your playing career. And you mentioned him by

name two times. Hank Gathers is always part of your story, and this past year was thirty years later. I know you talk about him a lot, and when you do these interviews around whether it's March Madness time or whenever it might be, and you're remembering Hank each and every year, what story or some of the stories do you enjoy telling the most? Well, you know, it's impossible to be close to Hank Gathers regular a teammate, a relative, or

you know, close associate. Hank just had just an extraordinary presence and he was always, believe it or not, the center of attention. So I think of Hank multiple times every day. But it's it's always happy thoughts and um and I have so many stories. One the best basketball story I enjoy telling is the one I told earlier planning against Shaquille O'Neill. You know that he scored forty eight points and eighteen rebounds. To my knowledge, I believe.

I don't think anyone else has ever done that against shot well, Hank Gathers did at six six sixty seven. And then other than that, Hank was actually a comedian off the court. So every if you admire comedians and you love David Chappelle, Hank Gathers was David. Every time I see David Chappelle, any joke, his delivery, and everything, I see Hank Gathers. So but there's always happy thoughts, and I celebrate his life. I don't think of how

he died. I think of how he lived and and all the records that we broke, and we both made Hank Gathers and myself, we made each other better. I only wanted the leading nation in scoring. After Hank did, I'm like, we'll hold on. Now, I'm a better score than Hank. He's on the cover of every magazine about to go pro early and he inspired me to want a lead the nation in scoring. And I told Doug Overt and I said, well, you know what, next year,

I'm a leading nation in scoring. I set my mind to it and I did it, which is still a record today. So I'm just very proud of the association. Another question people ask, hey, Bo, you know, are you bothered with being always affiliated and associated with Hank Gathers. Absolutely not. Hank Gathers, who he was on and off the court as being a great guy person I loved and respected and to be affiliated with him. And also I already had my own identity. I was going to be.

I was the number one scorer in the world no matter what that year, and I was going I was going to be a lottery pick no matter what, whether Hank was alive or not. So I had my own identity. But I'm very proud to be associated with Hanking. I'm very proud of the records that we both was able to acquition. There's more on the way, but first, Christianity Care as doctors, nurses and caregivers, and as neighbors and friends. Christianaicare is a partner in everyone's journey to greater health

and well being. Why do they do it for the love of health? Visit christianaicare dot org for you personally in your career at any level. I mean, Joe has told me there wasn't a league in Philly that you didn't play in, so it could be any level before college or after college. Who are some of the best players that you've played with or against? And I think obviously Hank would be in that group, but who are some of the others one of the guys that what

are your playgrounds? Where I gained on my skills? And I was playing eleven hours a day at twenty seventh and Clearfield, that's one block away from my house. So Lee roy Choice was and George Melton was the best two players in my immediate neighborhood. Lee roy Choice was like a black version of Larry Burry. Wasn't going to jump high but he's going to give you thirty forty every night, and he's want to just outwit you. I'll

smart you. One of the other guys that I stowed a lot of his moves and made them was Lewis Lloyd, the late Lewis Lloyd. Now I told Lewis when I saw him a couple of years All Star Week, and I said, you know, Lewis, I gotta tell you, man, I stored about three of your moves, and I stored I made a kazillion. I made a living off of those moves. He had a nice slow motion move coming across the paint. He had he would go sport full speed and then slow up, allow you to file him

and and one you all day. So so, but it was those kind of players that you see and you emilate, and of course we can't. I can't leave out Doctor j who was hands down deep number one role model you could have a dream of growing up in Philadelphia. And when I met Doc and he was so humble. So I asked him about I was about fourteen and we was in a tuxedo place. I asked him as many nervous questions about twenty in a five or ten minutes span and Doc answered every question, never made me

feel like I was a nuisance to him. And it was just Doctor J and me and in the in the Tuctedo place. And when he showed up at Loyola because all the visiting teams practiced at Loyola Marymont when they played the Lakers and the Clippers, and he remembered meeting me that day. He said, Hey, your name is Boot And that was good enough. Man. All the people that Doc know that he remembered talking to this fourteen year old from Philly, and that just made my day.

And I always vowed that if I wasn't a sociable player and I became an NBA player, I was going to give kids the same experience that Doctor J gave me. I just happened to be a talkative and sociable person, so I didn't have to work that hard at that. But but again, growing up in Philadelphia was a lot of players that I emulated my game after. But Lewis Lloyd and Lee Roy Chores was high on that list. Joe,

I know you're big on that. The level of competition that he just touched on, man, And the biggest thing is he talked about some leagues, and I want you to just touch on because you talk about the Sunny Hill League and man, and for us that was our Rutgers, that was our everything. And also, you know you can't talk Philly basketball. We'll talk about sixteen from Susque hand at thirty third and Diamond Honeyton Park. This nade some of those those memories you have or playing against some

of those top guys in those playgrounds. Man, yeah, you had Rico Washington, d n Blackwell, ye had um Mike Anderson Roman. I mean we're talking about guys and I mentioned Lewis Lawyer. Were you talking about guys that when they stepped on the court, you're not going to stop them. You might, but we're talking about really inner city rivalries. Lionel Simmons was part of that. So it was just it was just such a It was quite different now, you know, now people are not playing as much as

they played then. Back then we would leave Dobbins practice and go straight to play in one or two other leagues. But the Sunny Hill Ley was extraordinary, not only playing against the best people all throughout the state locally, but we were also on the Sunny Hill traveling team going to Virginia, New York DC plan up against the top guys.

So you not only had a chance to measure yourself in Philadelphia in the Belmont League, thirty third Street, now sixteen Pacessful Hannah was something that was out of control. I mean, like I remember one summer, Hank was plan in the Summer League and I'm and Hank's catching Ali you from half court, hanging on the rim. This is only Siemen and Hank to give a darn about high heat land. But it was just the Philadelphia brand of basketball.

And but sixteen Pacessful Hannah, thirty third and diamond Wood, your playground, particularly for me, was where I got my skill set and the rest is history. Yes, stand up, baby, Yes indeed. So time for a quick message from the Moor's. The Moore's Sports Medicine believes that highly personalized one on one physical therapy for young athletes is paramounts to a speedy and complete recovery. Learn more at the Moor's dot

org slash PT. Before we get to our final couple questions at the Buzzer, which is usually just some random questions that we want to get in you guys, scored enough points in college that we've got to go there first. Obviously, more specifically Paul Westhead, the coach coming from the NBA, the running gun, up tempo style. I mean, we could talk about a variety of different games, but one hundred and forty nine points in a win, an upset win over Michigan is a big one. It's a record setting game.

What do you remember about that offense and some of those games where you guys like that Michigan game put up so many points. Well, the best part about our system, the loyal Merimi running gun system, is that we never had to adjust our game for anybody. It didn't matter if you were top ten, ten, top twenty, didn't matter. We knew that you couldn't stop what we were doing

and we never had to adjust it. So we're going to shoot the bar every four seconds, and I did say every four to five is because we're going to shoot that ball, and you're gonna know that we're gonna be shooting at every four seconds. When we missed, you gotta Hank Gathers coming down to paint, getting up all the loose change and all the offensive rebounds against smaller

guards because he's beating his guys down. And then to top that off, whether we make the basket or miss, we're gonna full court track you the entire forty minutes and good luck with your trying to, you know, to get good luck with trying to solve that press because your coach can't draw it where you're going to be, because we don't even know where we're gonna be. We're gonna be everywhere. So it was just a beautiful system that allowed guys like Hank Gatherers and myself to flourish.

And we had really great team role players that was able to, you know, to kind of fill in understand what we were doing, and we all part of the system is also running the lane on offense for the other guy. You're not running it because you think you're gonna get the wide open shot or the wide open layup. You're running it forty other guy. And it just was just a unique system for Hank gatherers game and my game.

And I was very blessed, like I said, with that you at west Hairs offense, and west Head was from Philadelphia, and you matched at the Hank and ice skills. Said Hank Gatherer was able to get the ball, get the offensive rebound, and go coast to coast if he wanted to. He had that skill set and the green light from west Hare to do it. Paul west Head made a crystal clear to me, if you are ever open inside the hash mark and you don't shoot that three pointer,

you're gonna have a seat right next to me. So he made that crystal clear. And just imagine dreaming for any player like a Hank Gatherers style game in my game that a coach tell you every single time you touched the ball bombs away. So I couldn't dream of a better experience playing for Paul west Head and again for everybody else. That's why we had the highest top six games in history. I have the high his NCA postseason average of thirty seven point nine a game, which

is number one. And I still there's nobody on the face of the earth can sady average thirty five points in college anywhere in the world. And that's the record of them that those are records that I'm proud of. Our team has about twenty records. Hank Gallas have about thirty as well, so which is probably be part of

history and represent Philadelphia and bringing full circle. I'm blessed to be back home and giving back to my community, right And Joe, I want to leave space for you to jump in quickly on some of the stuff that Bow just mentioned about that Loyal and Merimount, that LMU team. But four seconds or less, it's just insane. I've been enjoying waking the highlights and to quickly tie it into

or tie it back to Doc Rivers. I read a story in the Athletic recently about how Doc told Jamal Crawford in La full on green light, just shoot it every time, So it made me think of Doc in that way. But Joe, those teams we're just so exciting to watch, and you talk about what it was that I want to say it was univer Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson with forty minutes a hell or forty but as a hell like That's that's where all that kind of come from. You know Dan Tony, you know he has

the same mindset or eight seconds or less. You know Paul Paul West at that time, he wasn't innovator. He wasn't innovator on that basketball court, and he had the players to do it. But I want to just lead you with this boat. You know, we talk about a lot of basketball, a lot of great things that you've done. But you and I know we have a great relationship and a diverse reationship because you do so many things.

And I was more proud the day that I brought you down to the seventy six of field House to watch the Blue Coach up close and personal and introduce you to our staff, our players, our coach and that in a beautiful facility had and some people that you know, the community, just someone like you still out here in the community with the neck and niche of the things that you bring to the table. Yeah, some of your question faded out, Joe, but it was talking about the community.

But I've been blessed to watch people like Sonny, you know, give back and understanding what that's about being as a retired player, being blessed to have resources and people along the way of help me. So I my first journey coming back to Philadelphia was to help people go from home ownership, I mean from renting to home ownership. So I started the Bokemball Foundation, and through the thirty years

I've been doing a lot of public speaking. I've also did some coaching, trying to get break the coaching ranks and the college and in the NBA. But when it comes to giving back, you know, for the kids, I want them to have the same experience that I was blessed to have I had. I always had people encouraging me how important education was, and I thank god I woke up before it was too late, because school wasn't at the top of my mind in the beginning, but

I woke upwards too late. So when I'm giving speeches a kid, I let them know that dreams come true if you can hear my voice and see my face. I'm literally every day as we speak, living my dream. And if you don't believe in yourself and you don't have positive people around you, a lot of times you think that you know, ninety percent of most of the young kids who want to be pro athletes in any

sport are not going to make it. But it's that one percent if you put the work in and you stay dedicated to what your dream and what your passion is. I let them know one dreams come true, and there's only one person in the world that can stop you, and that's you. So I look at life as the game of basketball. You'll never make every shot, but you got to learn how to make more shots than you miss, which means make more quality decisions in your life than

the poor ones. And you'll be blessed at what you put in is what you get out, and you'll have you'll have more of the kind of life you're trying to live. But you know, there's no better way to celebrate your life and your legacy than helping someone else fulfill theirs. And so that's one of the things that I take to heart. When it comes to giving back, I do it sincerely. But I'm just recycling all the great love that was given to me. So that's what

it's really good about. That's that's real brotherly love, Brother Joe, real brotherly love. So let's call this one a buzzer beater, because I just got one more question, A quick one at the buzzer go out on a light note, A lighter note. Um. Obviously that was inspiring stuff too, so it wasn't a bad note. But let's leave you with a quick hitter, like we like to leave our guests. I see that you're into golf, So what is your

favorite hobby? Is it golf? Golf? Golf and more golf, and so um, I love golf like I love the game of basketball. And so when you're putting a lot of time and it don't feel like work, but you're spot on on, man. I love the golf. I play at least two to three times a week. We'll have to get out together sometime. We'll get a group together to play. I like to play myself. We might have

to teach Joe a little bit. I don't think he We went to top Golf recently and hit some of them range, and I think he needs a little bit some tips from you. What a good nobody's tied the woods, Joe and Matt, so we're all good. So get out here those trees like the rest of us. We will get out there together at some point and we'll bring Joe along. But this was a lot of great stuff on this episode, and we thank you for the time. Bo, Thank you, Matt and Joe for having me anytime. Go Sixers,

Go Blue Coats. Thanks again to Bo, Kimball for joining us. For my partner Joe Richmond, I'm Matt Murphy. Until next time, Take it or leave it at the coach check