SPORTS
SH
Gibson goin
(First of a four-part series on the 2003 inductees to the
Kings Mountain Sports Hall of Fame).
By GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
Since he was a kid growing up on the northern end of the
city, some of Barry Gibson’s happier times have been spent
with a baseball in his hand.
The former high school and college pitching standout, and
retired Kings Mountain educator and coach, will likely con-
tinue to be giving pitching and hitting tips as his young
grandchildren Gibson and Harrison get into the sport.
For his many years of association with the sport Gibson
will be inducted into the Kings Mountain Hall of Fame at
the 16th annual ceremony Saturday, May 17 at 6 p.m. at the
H. Lawrence Patrick Senior Life & Conference Center.
Tickets are $10 each and are available from any member of
the Hall of Fame committee.
Gibson's first association with baseball came in the early
1950s in pick-up games around the neighborhood, and like
most kids his first taste of organized ball was in little league.
From that point throughout his playing and coaching
careers he appreciated the influence that people, especially
friends, teammates and coaches, had on his life. People like
little league and pony league coaches Jim Conner, Willie
Grice and Major Loftin, high school and legion coaches Jake
Early and Fred Withers, and college coaches Walt Cornwell
and Skip Downs came immediately to mind. Perhaps the
coach that meant the most to him was his high school assis-
tant, Bud Bumgardner, whom Gibson inducted into the Hall
of Fame in 1995 after Bud lost a long and courageous fight
with cancer.
Gibson, who posted a 140-108-1 record with two confer-
ence championships in 13 years as head coach at KMHS,
credited most of that success to good players and Bud
Bumgardner.
“Bud helped me in some of my most successful years,” he
said. “If you would look back you'd see there's a direct con-
nection between those successful years and having Bud as
my assistant coach. He played an important role but he
always shied away from the credit he was due.
“We got along so great as coaches because we both
learned our baseball from the same two people - Fred
Withers and Jake Early. Bud was about five years older than
me and we never got to play together, but we were always
on the same page as coaches, teaching the same set of fun-
damentals and the same philosophy of the game.”
Gibson's philosophy could be summed up in one word:
discipline. He believed in having fun on the field, but he
also believed in doing the fundamentals right. He expected
his players to give a hundred percent on and off the field.
Gibson turned out some good athletes during his coaching
tenure from 1971-73. His 1975 and 1980 teams, with 14-4 and
21-5 records, respectively, won their confererice champ: 3}
onship and the 1980 team played for fais bas Sotto
Championship. Six times in those 13 years, Gibson was
voted by his peers as the Southwestern Conference Coach of
the Year. :
But he takes none of the credit for the Mountaineers’ suc-
cess.
“I always had a bunch of great kids to work with, and I'm
sure I gained more from the young men than what I gave to
them,” he says.
He says his wife, Susan, and daughters Mary Elizabeth
and Jennifer Ann deserve their own awards for putting up
, with him during his coaching career.
“I always tried to leave baseball on the field when I went
home,” he said, “but I'm sure there were times when I took
it home with me and put it too high on my priority list.”
Gibson said all of his teams were special but, of course,
the championship years are more easily remembered.
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SH
Barry Gibson played and coached baseball at Kings
Mountain High School.
“Both the ‘75 and ‘80 teams were special,” he said, “but
not just because we won championships and got into the
playoffs. At the beginning of such a season there's always a
special feeling that you get and even the players sense that
it’s going to be a good season. It happened both times. It
was almost like they weren't going to be denied.”
The ‘75 team, led by slugger David Lancaster and pitchers
Richard Gillespie and Chuck Austin, edged a very strong
Shelby team for the SWC crown. Back in those days, only
the conference champion advanced to the State playoffs.
Rings Mountain lost in the playoffs to Marion.
In ‘80, the Mountaineers rolled through the SWC and won
the Western NC championship before losing two straight
, games to Greene Central in the best-of-three State
| Chdmpionship series.
“I especially remember Tim Leach (pitcher) and Lyn
Hayes (catcher) were natural born leaders and really helped
Bud and me a lot because they kept some of the other play-
ers in line,” he said. “We had some younger players who
were good ball players but had a streak of hot dog in them,
and Lyn and Tim kept them in line pretty good and the
players respected them for that.”
Gibson left coaching after the 1983 season to go into
administration.
Gibson helped Fred Withers’ 1963 Mountaineer team win
the school’s first conference championship in 22 years. He
posted a 4-0 record and was MVP on a team that featured a
talented three-man pitching rotation that also included
Jackie Hughes and Bo Goforth. Gibson and Goforth would
later hook-up as opponents in college - Gibson at Lenoir-
Rhyne and Goforth at Appalachian. His senior year at L-R,
Gibson went 5-1 and was voted the school’s most outstand-
ing spring athlete.
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April 17, 2003
A
into Hall of Fame
“I remember that ‘63 team well,” Gibson said. “We had
players like Jim Leigh, Richard Gold, Pat Murphy, Charles
Goodson. Louis Cook, Richard Little and Henry Hilliard. We
had a good, cohesive unit.”
Kings Mountain won the conference title on the last night
of the season, thanks to Gibson's 2-hit, 13-strikeout perform-
ance against Belmont. On the same night, R-S Central was
beating Shelby to break a tie between KM and Shelby for
first place.
The Mountaineers went on to play Hickory in the first
round of the playoffs, and lost by a run.
“Hickory had a good ball team and it was just their
night,” recalled Gibson, who was called on to relieve in the
late innings. “Baseball’s a funny game. It seems like any
team can beat any other team on a given day, and that’s
what happened that night. We had just as as good or better
team, but it was their night. Still, we were glad to get that
far because it had been over 20 years since Kings Mountain
won a conference championship. Coach Withers retired from
coaching after that season and that was a good way for him
to go out.”
As a coach, Gibson said it’s difficult to remember every-
one, but he was asked who were some of his best players in
different categories.
Defense - Robbie Moore, who played for Gibson at Kings
Mountain Junior High and was later on his first three teams
at KMHS.
“He had the best glove and quickest hands and quickest
feet of any infielder I ever had, bar none,” Gibson said. “He
was amazing in the infield.”
Gibson also remembers Moore starting out his senior sea-
son getting a hit in his first 12 at-bats. Moore, a Baptist min-
ister, will induct Gibson into the Hall of Fame.
Best natural swings - David Lancaster, who slugged 11
home runs as a first baseman on Gibson's 1975 champi-
onship team, and catcher Scott Ellis, who played in the mid-
to-late 1970s. Both were left hand hitters.
Best hustlers - Darrell Van Dyke, a center fielder in the
early to mid-70s who went on to play with Moore at nearby
Gardner-Webb College. Van Dyke is now the coach at East
Gaston High, where he has over 200 career wins; and David
Ray Robinson, a pitcher-infielder who went on to become
the leader of the Western Carolina University mound staff in
. the early 1980s and who has spent most summers since
coaching recreation league and AAU baseball in Kings
Mountain.
“I always liked the kids that hustled,” he said. “I don’t
care if their ability was limited. I would take a player who
had that limited ability and who hustled any day over
somebody that had ability and wouldn't put out. I think
most coaches are that way.”
If he could give advice to coaches today, Gibson said it
would be that “fences make good neighbors. Always be
aware and appreciative of fan support but never let it inter-
fere with the decision you make as & ‘Couch ATwalE be your
own man without attaching strings.” !
And, if he could give advice to the fans, he said it would
be to “let the coaches coach and the players play.”
“There’s been some changes in high school sports, and I'm
afraid there’s more aspects of school sports where the line
has been blurred a little bit,” he said. “When I came along
and played and during my coaching career, everybody
knew their role. Today some of those lines have been
blurred. I don’t like to see some of the attitudes we some-
times see in the stands. I'm not only talking about Kings
Mountain, but in school sports in general almost anywhere
in the nation.”
Upon being notified of his election into the Hall of Fame,
Gibson was obviously surprised but very grateful.
“I'm humbled, I really am,” he said. “I'm shocked. It’s nice
to be among all the others that have gone in before me, and
it’s a nice way to top things off.”
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