By Jessica Booth
Among the new players that the University will be adding to their basketball team next year is David Imes, a 19-year-old small forward and power forward player from Brooklyn. Imes’s pre-University history is unique, however, because he was featured alongside his high school basketball team in a documentary about their coach. The documentary, “A Woman Among Boys,” directed by the award-winning filmmakers Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill, is airing on ESPN2 on Sunday, Dec. 21 at 9 p.m.
The documentary focuses mainly on the basketball team’s coach, Ruth “Coach Love” Lovelace. Coach Love is the only woman leading a basketball team in New York City’s toughest basketball division, which happens to be in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of Brooklyn. The film shows how Coach Love revived the basketball program of Boys and Girls High School. Imes was one of those basketball players featured during his junior and senior years.
“If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know where I would be right now,” says Imes. “She helped me figure everything out about colleges and helped me make most of my important decisions.” Imes had gone to a different school during his first two years of high school before Coach Love pulled him in the direction of Boys and Girls. She had seen the kind of player he was and wanted him on her team. Torn between two different high schools that both had good basketball programs, Imes finally decided on Boys and Girls, and it was a decision he never regretted.
Since you rarely hear about women basketball coaches, it was a big change for Imes. “At first… it was hard to adjust to having a lady coach,” he says. “It was hard to take her seriously. It was something I had to get used to.” However, Imes was never dissatisfied with his coach. “It was like having a mother away from home,” he says. “She always helped anyone in any way she could.” During his junior year at Boys and Girls, his basketball team made it to the championships for the first time in 20 years due to both the players and their coach.
Imes began playing basketball when he was about seven years old. He had been watching people play his whole life, and his family had always been into it. “I just love the game,” says Imes. “I love everything about it, there’s nothing I can say I don’t love about basketball.” He had known for a long time that basketball was something he wanted to continue with for as long as possible.
After graduating from Boys and Girls High School, Imes went to Winchendon School in Massachusetts, a post-graduate school where he could continue to play basketball and prepare for college. He will graduate from Winchendon this year, then continue on to the Unviersity, which he is excited to attend.
“The school felt like it fit me,” says Imes about his visits to the University while trying to make his decision on what college to go to. “I liked the relationships I had with the coaches; they made me feel comfortable. And it’s close to home.”
Once at the University, Imes plans on majoring in sports medicine. His dream is to play for the NBA (his favorite team is the Lakers), but sports medicine is his backup plan in case he gets injured. Going on to play NBA ball after school was fostered not only by Coach Love, but also by his assistant coach from high school, Elmer Anderson, who once played for the NBA himself. “He helped me with everything. If I ever had a problem and couldn’t get in touch with my parents, he would be the first person I’d call,” says Imes. “He taught me what it was to try to be an NBA player. He knows what it takes.”