Marshall University Athletics
Marshall Athletics Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 1985
- Class:
- 1949
Recruited play football for Coach Cam Henderson out of Collins High School in the West Virginia coal camp town of Winding Gulf in Raleigh County, Don Gibson spent one season at Marshall before enlisting in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II. Receiving Service Team All-American honors as he played offensive and defensive end for the Coast Guard team during his time in the service, Gibson also served on the USS Monticello, a troop transfer ship, in the Atlantic theater during the conflict.
After the war Gibson returned to Marshall, playing during the 1947 season in which the team logged a 9-2 record and received an invitation to the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Fla., on New Year’s Day. Despite the fact that Catawba College beat Marshall 7-0, Gibson was named the game’s Most Valuable Player.
Following his graduation, Gibson became an assistant coach for Marshall alumnus Herb Royer at West Virginia Tech, then took the job as athletic director and head football and basketball coach at Clear Fork High School in Wyoming County. In 1953, on Henderson's recommendation, Gibson was hired to be the athletic director, football and men’s basketball coach at New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, N.M., where the president was Dr. Tom Donnelly, a former Marshall professor. Gibson took over a football team that had only one win in its previous two seasons, but by his second year the team went 5-2-1 using the single wing offense that Gibson had played in for Henderson. In basketball, his 1957 and 1960 teams won conference championships and advanced to the NAIA National Tournament in Kansas City, Mo. Throughout his career, Gibson’s rosters in New Mexico were dotted with players from West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky.
Gibson was inducted into the New Mexico Highlands athletic hall of fame, which was later named the Coach Don Gibson H-Club Hall of Honor. He also became a Las Vegas, N.M., city councilman and chaired the local Red Cross, and was inducted into the National Single Wing Football Coaches’ Hall of Fame in 2009. Gibson was inducted into the Marshall Athletic Hall of Fame in 1985.
