He liked the kid from the first moment he saw him play. He was long, rangy and skilled for his size. Competitive, too. He was highly regarded nationally but not so coveted that they would have to beat out the elite blue-chip programs to get him. The kid came from a nice family in Los Angeles, and though it was a long way from home, he seemed intrigued by the idea of playing for Boston College.



The kid liked him, too, although that was no surprise. Ed Cooley was hard not to like, and hard not to notice. He had a big frame with a personality to match. When he walked into a gym, the kid knew he was there. When they talked on the phone, the kid felt he had known him his whole life. “Coach Cooley was always very relatable,” Brandon Bowman recalls. “He was down to earth, but he still had that smooth, flashy swagger about him.”



Cooley was in his fifth season as an assistant at BC under head coach Al Skinner. As the program’s primary West Coast...