The Imhotep Charter boys’ basketball team was in Boston a few years ago for a tournament when Andre Noble told his players that they were in his hometown.
“I said, ‘Wait. What?’” said Ebony Twiggs, whose son, Justin Edwards, was one of Imhotep’s stars. “I just thought he always lived here. I didn’t know he wasn’t from Philly.”
Noble reminded Twiggs of the people she knew from West Oak Lane. He had been at Imhotep for more than 20 years. And he was one of the city’s premier high school basketball coaches. He fit in. Of course he was from Philadelphia.
Noble, who can win a sixth straight Public League title and 13th overall on Sunday when Imhotep plays West Philly High, is one of Philly’s all-time coaches.
Unlike the rest, Noble didn’t spend his teenage summers playing at places like Chew, Tustin, and Myers. He didn’t win CYO titles, ride the trolley to watch doubleheaders at the Palestra, or find himself within six degrees of separation from someone who played on the 1954 La Salle basketball team.
Philadelphia has produced great players, coaches, and even referees. And the high school coaches, especially the ones who have won at the rate Noble has, often grew up here. They played for the city high schools, perhaps even stayed for college, and remained a tight-knit crew who stayed home to teach the game.
Speedy Morris still lives in Roxborough, Dan Dougherty was from Olney, Bill Ellerbee grew up on Uber Street, and Carl Arrigale is as South Philly as slowly driving past a stop sign. The guys on the Mt. Rushmore of Philadelphia high school coaches are from the neighborhood who coached kids like them.
But Noble grew up in Boston’s Mattapan neighborhood and didn’t even play high school ball. He came to Philadelphia in 2000 after graduating from Lincoln University and taught math at Imhotep, which did not yet have an athletic program.
Noble planned to stay in Philly for a year before moving on. His plans changed, he stayed, and Imhotep became a basketball powerhouse.
The guy from Boston did what seemingly has never been done: become a great Philly high school coach as an outsider.
“I think by the time everyone figured out I wasn’t from Philly, it was too late,” Noble said. “The ball was already rolling down the hill. But I’m definitely a Philly basketball guy. It’s important to me.”
A special guy
Imhotep didn’t have a basketball team when Noble arrived. The school didn’t even have a building.
“We called them modulars, but everyone else said, ‘Yo, that’s the trailer school,’” said Noble, who is now the school’s CEO.
Two students in his algebra class — Briscoe Chew and Marlon Mills — told Noble at the end of the school year that they were transferring. Noble was stunned. Why? Imhotep doesn’t have sports, they told him. So Noble launched a basketball team and kick-started a league with the city’s other charter schools.
Noble didn’t have a playing background to lean on, so he picked the brains of coaches in the area. Rap Curry, Greg Dennis, and Clyde Jones became his mentors. He was on his way. His plan to leave Philly after a year was spoiled, so he began to scour the city for players. He watched games at youth programs in North Philadelphia and hung at playgrounds, hoping he could fill a roster at Imhotep.
“I knew he was from Boston, but then I started seeing him at 25th and Diamond or 33rd and Diamond,” said Kamal Yard, who runs Philly Pride, one of the city’s premier AAU programs. “I’m like, ‘Bro, what are you doing down here? Do you know where you’re at?’ But he was in the mix. He was in the hood. He was in the projects. Nobody goes to the back of the projects at 25th and Diamond, but he did it. He was meeting the kids. That was his intro to Philly, and he was onto something. He got immersed into it.”
Yard met Noble years earlier when they were both students at Lincoln. Yard played ball and Noble watched from the stands. The future coach was studying, Yard said. When students complained about the food in the cafeteria, Noble led the charge as a member of the student government. He led a boycott, filed a petition, called the state, and ordered a review.
“You blinked and, man, we had a whole new menu,” Yard said. “But the whole point was that he was always about other people. So watching this transition, it’s no surprise. He’s a giver of people. He doesn’t look like a tough guy because he’s mild-mannered, but there’s a lot of toughness and resiliency in that frame. He’s as tough as they come.
“Brother Andre will go into the lion den with a tiki torch and a sword to go help a kid. He might come out scratched up, but he helped his kid. That’s Brother Andre.”
The Panthers, waiting for their gym to be built, practiced at a nearby recreation center and a middle school. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked. Imhotep won the Charter School league before moving in 2004 to the Public League. Five years later, Noble’s team won it all.
The Boston guy had built one of Philly’s finest teams.
“He’s a special guy,” said Fran Dunphy, the quintessential Philly coach. “The biggest asset he brings is just his genuine goodness. He treats the kids well, but there’s no question that he has an accountability for them and needs them to pay attention. They all seem to buy in. He’s remarkable for me.”
A teacher
Noble was a junior in college when he thought about how he was the only kid he grew up with preparing to get a degree. He wondered, how did that happen? And then he thought about his mom, a single parent who worked as an office manager and raised her sons — “Two knuckleheads,” Noble said — in a tough neighborhood.
“I called her and thanked her,” Noble said. “I knew it was that little lady who I thought was crazy but provided the foundation. She was a stickler, a disciplinarian. It was her way or the highway, ‘Hey, this is what you’re doing.’”
It was a big deal when Noble secured admission to the Boston Latin School, a prestigious school near Fenway Park. But his mother asked him to think about it before she sent in his paperwork. She asked her son, would he take his studies seriously? Would he be ready to work hard? Can he commit himself? Noble said he would.
Years later, he found out that his mom already had sent in the paperwork. But Della Noble wanted her son to feel a sense of ownership in his decision. She believed her son could do it. And now Noble empowers and supports the kids at Imhotep the same way his mom did. If a kid on his team wants to visit a college, Noble often is driving the car. If a kid has a problem in school, Noble’s door is open.
“You realize that there’s way more important things in life,” Noble said. “If we can get them to be the best young men we can be, then the rest of their lives will be meaningful. There’s so many things you can teach through basketball.”
Becoming one of Philly’s all-time coaches is about more than just breaking a press or drawing up an inbounds play with seconds left. Noble proved that an outsider can do it, too.
“There’s a trust that he has with his players that we all try to search for in relationships with the kids,” Dunphy said. “I think he’s found that secret. To be honest with you, I don’t know if I ever sat down with him and said, ‘Yo, what is your secret?’ I think he would be so humble, and he’d say, ‘I don’t know. I’m just being myself.’ It’s what makes mentorship so important to all of us. You have to be there for the young people.”
Noble has surrounded himself with a crew of assistant coaches who grew up in Philly. He has embraced the city’s basketball history and has now spent more time here than he did in Boston. He’s an adopted Philly guy.
Charles “Shoob” Monroe, who organizes an annual showcase game for the city’s top high schoolers, said Noble knows more about old-school Philly basketball than people who actually lived here. No, he’s not from Philly. But Noble became a part of it.
“Someone always knows someone or knows someone who knows someone,” said Arrigale, who could win his 13th Catholic League title on Sunday when his Neumann Goretti squad plays Father Judge. “He didn’t really have that experience because no one played against him and things like that. But he’s been around long enough that he knows everyone now. He’s had a pretty good run over there.”
A father figure
Twiggs’ son now plays for the Sixers but once was a teenager who didn’t clean his room or finish his homework. And when that happened, Twiggs knew to call the guy from Boston.
“Justin would come home and be like, ‘You told on me,’” Twiggs said.
Twiggs, a single mother who worked two jobs to keep her son’s dream alive, said Noble was like “a father figure” to her son. He wasn’t from Philly but that was OK.
“Justin lacked that growing up,” Twiggs said of a male role model. “Having Brother Andre and the whole coaching staff just be so hands on with Justin took a lot of stress off for me.”
Edwards is one of the many players Noble coached who moved onto a Division I program. By now, the coach who didn’t play high school ball has enough accolades to coach in college. He’s instead decided to stay at Imhotep.
A few years ago, Mills’ son, Timmy, graduated from Imhotep. He brought his son to see Noble and tell the story about how two students triggered Noble to start a team. It was true, Noble said. And that helped the guy from Boston find a home in Philly.
“I love what I get to do,” Noble said. “I love the school. I love serving this community. I don’t see myself anywhere else. I don’t rule anything out, but if I have the opportunity to coach and lead at Imhotep until the rest of my career, that would be a blessing. The one-year plan definitely didn’t work out. I failed in that.”
