To this day, every time I see someone in a floppy, white tennis hat I immediately think of Gerald Kimble. Doesn’t matter who it is or what the occasion — Gerald Kimble was always the first person to come to mind. There might have been some times when I wouldn’t see Kimble wearing that signature item at a practice or a game, but not many.
“I just got to wearing it one day out at practice and it just became a part of my wardrobe and that was it,” he told me four years ago. “So I just wore it for 38 years.”
Gerald Kimble died this week and unless you were around during that hat-wearing era, it’s hard to put into perspective what he meant to so many who he coached, coached with or coached against.
Sure, there have been high school football coaches who have done great reclamation projects in Northwest Louisiana over the years. But in most cases, those examples come from those who were bringing programs back to previous glory.
Green Oaks had no glory until Kimble arrived. Zero. None.
From the time the school began in 1971, the Giants were always the worst team in the city. In 1976, the Giants only scored five touchdowns the entire season and were outscored 121-0 over four games.
The next year, eight of the nine losses were by at least two touchdowns.
Who in their right mind would want to sign up to be the next head coach of that program?
Gerald Kimble, that’s who.
Here’s a great example of what he walked into. When Kimble got the team together for his first spring training at Green Oaks, he had 11 players. Not 11 players on offense or 11 on defense.
Eleven total players.
Teaching X’s and O’s would come with time, but Kimble’s first order of business was to establish a mindset of winning. Not easy for a team in the midst of a 29-game losing streak.
Green Oaks didn’t win a single game in his first year, but four of the five losses were by a touchdown or less. In his third game as head coach, Green Oaks lost to Jesuit (now Loyola) 10-7. Jesuit would go on to the 1978 state semifinals.
Then-Flyers’ coach Anthony Catanese was asked by another local coach how he could beat Green Oaks by only three points. “Let me tell you something,” Catanese responded. “There’s a new sheriff in town. And his name is Gerald Kimble.”
That doesn’t come as a surprise to those who knew him. “Coach Kimble’s legacy of ‘Expect to Win’ is what I will remember about him,” says Mike Green, who went on to play for Kimble at Southern. “Whether it was his days at Green Oaks, his time at Booker T. Washington, or the time we shared at Southern, Coach Kimble made you work hard enough during practice time whereas when the game lights came on, he expected to win. “
Indeed, it did become an expectation.
Green Oaks – a school that never won more than three games in a season for an entire decade and was 0-10 the previous year – won a district championship in 1979 and made the playoffs.
The Giants finished either first or second in the district in each of the next six years and won nine games every year from 1982 to 1984. Kimble had a 10-win season in 1988 before moving on to Southern, where he coached for three years. He would later come back and coach at BTW.
It would be one thing to write the story about how Kimble turned a laughingstock into one of the premier football programs in Shreveport-Bossier in the blink of an eye. But that would not tell the full story of his impact.
“Coach Kimble was a builder of young men into men,” says Gary Cooper, the current BTW coach. “He had high standards and expectations for doing things the right way. He was tough on us but we definitely knew he cared about us.”
Two years ago, BTW honored former head coach James Mosley, a coaching friend of Kimble through the years, at a Soul Bowl breakfast. On a moment’s notice, Kimble gave a moving speech about his friend. No notes, just straight from the heart.
“My coaching colleagues all talk about him being a great man and a father figure,” Cooper says.
“He coached with love and passion, no negativity, but from his heart,” says current Huntington head coach John Simon. “(He) built long lasting relationships, led men and gave men opportunity.”
If you attend a Huntington game in the fall, it will be easy to spot Simon. He will be one wearing the floppy white hat.
A legacy honored.
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com