A talented coach with a wealth of NCAA Division I experience, Will Kimble returns for his second season with the Cal State LA men’s basketball coaching staff. Kimble joined the Golden Eagles after spending four seasons at San Jose State.
Kimble was a big addition to the Cal State LA coaching staff as the Golden Eagles faced some challenging obstacles while returning to play in 2021-22. Cal State LA had one of its youngest teams in years with four freshmen playing significant minutes and the coaching staff did a brilliant job setting the Golden Eagles up for future success.
Kimble’s coaching career includes impressive stints at the high school, junior college and collegiate levels. He was an accomplished Division I player as well, starring at Pepperdine for two seasons before finishing his career at UTEP.
Kimble had great success coaching at San Jose State, where he was instrumental in the development of forward/center Ralph Agee, who became the first Spartan since 2015 to earn Mountain West Player of the Week honors in 2020-21. Under Kimble’s direction, he boosted his points per game average from 5.2 points per game to 11.1 and his rebounds per game from 3.7 to 5.2.
He also coached Michael Steadman to great success at San Jose State in 2018-19, ranking in the top-15 in both scoring and rebounding in the Mountain West, posting 11 double-doubles and reaching double figures in scoring 23 times.
Before joining San Jose State, Kimble was an assistant coach for UC Riverside of the Big West Conference, where he worked with leading scorer Secean Johnson and helped him earn All-Big West honorable mention.
Prior to coaching at UC Riverside, Kimble was the associate head coach at Cathedral High School in Los Angeles for five seasons. The program reached No. 13 in the state during the 2014-15 season when the team reached the CIF Division III State Championships finals.
Kimble also had assistant coaching stints at Citrus College, where he was part of a staff that led the program to a California Community Colleges Men’s Basketball State Championship in 2007-08, and Pepperdine, where he helped the team to the West Coast Conference tournament in his three seasons with the program.
As a player, Kimble excelled at a pair of Division I programs. He led Pepperdine to NCAA and NIT tournament appearances in his two seasons before transferring to UTEP, where he also led his team to an NCAA berth in 2005 and an NIT bid in 2006. An accomplished student as well, Kimble became the first UTEP student-athlete to earn a Master’s degree while participating in Division I athletics.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in advertising from Pepperdine and received his Master’s degree in education, instructional specialist in science, from UTEP.
