Outsider No More

By Terry Mosher

Editor, Sports Paper

It doesn’t seem possible so many years have passed since the Kitsap Outsiders were a top West Sound entertainment.

The Jackson 5 was on a world tour, an unpopular president (Richard Nixon) resigned, America’s effort in Vietnam was headed for a crash – Saigon fell in April of 1975 – Muhammad Ali backed up his “I’m the Greatest” claim by knocking out unbeaten George Foreman in Zaire, and the Outsiders were closing the book on their short but explosive baseball history.

Who would have thunk it, as the great Dizzy Dean would often say, that a young man with a head of curly hair would from 1971-74 be the leader of a band of talented athletes who made headlines by their daring play, three times moving on to state or national tournaments while exciting their loyal fan base.

Wayne Gibson was 24 when he assisted local legend Harry Russell in 1970 to form an Outside Inn summer baseball team that would grow from Russell’s original idea of extending the play of his Olympic College baseball program into the summer months. That would help build his program, Russell reasoned.

But after one year, Russell stopped, handing the reins over to Gibson, who put together a collection of the best athletes on the Peninsula and joined the Stan Musial organization. For the next two years, the youthful and energetic Gibson, a 5-foot-5 ball of fire, would guide the Kitsap Outsiders to two Stan Musial National Tournaments in Battle Creek, Mich.

The next two years, the Outsiders under Gibson’s aggressive leadership would play in the Casey Stengel Southwest League (Silverdale’s Harland Beery was the Casey Stengel National Commissioner) and take his team to the annual Stengel State Tournament. They would host the 1974 national tournament at Roosevelt Field in Bremerton.

One of the top pitchers for the Outsiders was Bob Fisher, now retired from teaching and coaching in the South Kitsap School District. Catfish, as he was called, was a left-handed thrower with a rubber arm who could pitch and pitch and pitch.

He was recruited to the Outsiders in 1972 by catcher Butch Holt, who arrived at Fisher’s summer job at Mission Creek Youth Camp and invited him to join the team. Fisher had just completed his junior year at University of Puget Sound.

But before he officially agreed to play, Fisher wanted to meet Gibson, who he was told was at South Kitsap High School. Fisher went there, couldn’t find Gibson, but found his future wife Adele.

“I started taking her out, and we’ve been married now for 34 years,” says Fisher.

Fisher also remembers during the 1972 season the team added a pick-up player from Tacoma Harmon Rental, which had folded, for the state tournament. Chris Lincecum was a pitcher, just like his son Tim is now with the San Francisco Giants.

“Tim apparently has the same personality as Chris,” says Fisher. “We use to call Chris ‘Crazy Chris.’ From what I have heard about his son, he’s just as crazy. Chris was a good guy. He was kind of a clown, but fun to be around. He was a pretty good pitcher.”

Gibson’s Outsiders were often shorthanded at one position or the other and it wasn’t uncommon for Fisher to pitch twice in one day. At one state tournament he even pitched in his white loafers when he forgot and left his baseball shoes at home. He won the game.

For Gibson, now 63, those were fun days. He was learning how to be a leader of men, which later would be a factor in the direction his life would take. But the story of Gibson is more than the Outsiders, although those were certainly exciting times for him and others who wore the uniform.

It all starts for him in Bedford, England, where he was born. His father was a World War II pilot stationed there.

Gibson’s father grew up in Oakville, a small town on the north shore of the Chehalis River in Grays Harbor County. His dad was the seventh-man on the Oakville basketball team that had a 7-footer as its key player as the Acorns wound their way to the state tournament.

When his dad came back from the war, the family located in Longview. The Gibsons moved to Bremerton when Wayne was in the seventh grade so his dad could work in the shipyard.

Gibson started out at Coontz Junior High in West Bremerton and in the eighth grade moved to Dewey Junior High in East Bremerton.

“That was the better side of town, anyway,” says Gibson, who now lives near Key Center with wife Dana.

Growing up in East Bremerton, kids like Gibson wanted more than anything to play basketball for Les Eathorne. Although he wasn’t tall, Gibson managed to make the team and played two years on the junior varsity coached by Larry Sampson, who has become a lifelong friend. His senior year he played varsity.

“He was just a big influence on me,” says Gibson of Eathorne, whose career spanned four decades and 502 victories. “Making the team was a big thing to me. It gave me a lot of confidence. Playing for Eathorne, you felt like you would win – you believed you would win. His influence has really meant a lot to me later in life. He made me believe you can do it if you want to.”

Peer mentors like John Tracy, now a Bremerton attorney, and Dick Winderl, who has owned a Bremerton tire and auto repair business for years, also helped him, Gibson says. As did Sampson, who he eventually coached with at Olympic College.

Gibson was an outfielder in baseball for coach Art McCarty at East Bremerton. He played the sport two years for Russell at Olympic College, and continued playing baseball for two more years at Central Washington under coach Gary Frederick.

In Gibson’s senior year at Central (1968), the Wildcats finished third in the NAIA National Tournament. That team, which included East Bremerton’s Bill Walker (he played one year with the Outsiders), and pitcher Doug Nelson, who played at West Bremerton, was inducted into the Central Washington Sports Hall of Fame in 1999.

After graduation, Gibson returned to OC where he assisted Russell in baseball and Sampson in basketball. His association with Russell led to the formation of the Outsiders and their brief but glorious history.

OC basketball under Sampson and Gibson shone brightly for a brief time in the early 1970s before flaming out for a long time. Those were the days of Larry Jackson, Everett Cunningham and Marvelous Marv Buckley.

During this time, Gibson was in constant touch with Washington basketball coach Marv Harshman, hoping the future Hall of Famer would take him on as an assistant coach. In 1973, Gibson landed his first head coaching job as coach at Ferndale High School. He turned around what had been a dormant program and four years later he was at Harshman’s side at Husky games in the old Hec Ed.

“He told me that if I did well at Ferndale he would hire me,” says Gibson. “And he did. I became his only (ever) part-time assistant.’

That was the 1978-79 season.

About this time came a period of darkness for Gibson. His marriage failed. Elton Goodwin, who pitched for the Outsiders and later became a Hall of Fame baseball coach at South Kitsap, was also going through a divorce and invited Gibson to room with him.

They had become good friends when they both taught together at Cedar Heights Junior High several years earlier, so it was natural lean on each other.

“Wayne is just a good guy,” says Goodwin. “He’s got a heart of gold.”

That heart of gold wasn’t so golden when the two started rooming together. Goodwin said he had almost no furniture after the divorce, just a chair and a TV. Shortly after Gibson moved in, Goodwin couldn’t stand it any more. He figured they both needed a mental boost. So he announced one day that, “We are going to Reno.”

The two of them didn’t have a dime to spare. So they saved up their money over the next month or so and then took off for Reno to break up their despair and shed some light on their lives.

“We had 300 dollars each, and that was it,” says Goodwin. “We drove down in my car. We get there at night and started gambling. We’re playing (21) and losing and I’m telling him , ‘Let’s go’ and he keeps saying, ‘We’re going to win. We’re going to win. We’re going to do this thing.’ And he refuses to quit, because he never quits. Wayne and I are alike because we never quit. We could be playing horseshoes, basketball or whatever and we’re going to play until we beat your ass. So I wasn’t going to tell him to quit. We were going to beat those (bleeping) dealers.

“We go broke. I’m so pissed. We were supposed to stay three days. We come out of the casino and the sun is coming up, and we sleep in my car. We had to call home for some money to get back home.”

So much for a little R&R.

Goodwin is slowed now by a nagging hamstring injury, but for many years he cut wood to make an extra buck or two.

“Wayne was such a (bleep),” says Goodwin. “He didn’t know how to split wood. He didn’t know how to do anything. I had an old ’55 International, my first half-ton (truck). I always carried my dog Sheba in it. He was so tired this one day and he slammed the door on Sheba’s tail and broke it. I wanted to kill him.

“We used to drive around Parkwood and knock on doors to try and sell our wood. I was selling a cord for $23.50. We came to this one house and I told Wayne it was his turn to knock and give our speech. He knocks and this beautiful gal with long hair answers the door. She’s probably in her 20s. He’s tongue-tied, flabbergasted. He sells the wood for $18.

“And we stacked it in her backyard! We moved the wood all the way from the truck to the backyard for 18 bucks. I’m so mad.”

Gibson assisted Harshman’s part-time assistant for one year, then Harshman helped Gibson land an assistant coaching position at Wisconsin-Green Bay under coach Dave Buss. Gibson and Buss didn’t see eye-to-eye so Gibson left after one year. He then worked for a year as an assistant to Denny Huston at Western Washington (1980-81).

Buss was fired at Wisconsin-Green Bay after the 1981 season and assistant coach Dick Lien, now the head women’s coach at Colorado State, was promoted. Lien and Gibson had become friends and Lien called and asked Gibson to return as assistant.

“He’s an awesome guy,” says Gibson of Lien, who was followed by Dick Bennett at Wisconsin-Green Bay.

The job with Lien lasted three years from 1981-84. Lien and all of his assistants, including Gibson, were fired after the 1984 season.

“It’s the biggest disappointment of my life,” says Gibson. “Bottom line is we didn’t get it done.”

Gibson came home to this area. He had married Dana in 1983 and their 26-year union has produced two daughters – Carly and Ali – and plenty of good times and a nice house on the water.

“It’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” says Gibson, who eventually gained full custody of two sons, David and Ryan, from his first marriage.

When he returned, he started his own business – Unlimited Potential – which he still owns. That led him to a long-time association with Anheuser-Busch and travels to the Mid-West.

For six years (2000-2006) he stopped his business to join West Bremerton graduate Mike O”Brien in his O’Brien Auto Group, essentially doing the same stuff he did with Unlimited Potential - increase productively in the business through his acute business sense.

He’s now back doing independent consultant work through Unlimited Potential, working with Anheuser-Busch, primarily in Bakersfield, Calif. and Rockford, Ill. and with the Gee Auto Group in Pasco, Spokane and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

The original Unlimited Potential business model was supposed to be like what Port Orchard’s Dick Anderson does with his Edge Learning Institute, which was pattern after Lou Tice’s Pacific Institute. Those two latter companies focus on self-esteem. Gibson started out that way, but discovered he was better at promoting organizational development strategies that increase productively.

Gibson goes into a company and through employee interviews discovers strengths and weaknesses that can help the business turn itself around. In a sense, Gibson is still coaching, seeking effective leadership and team work in companies, promoting positive development.

“I really enjoy it,” Gibson says of his work. “It’s fun to go in and help a company grow.”

While the beat goes on for Gibson and the Jackson 5, which will once again go on tour, much else has changed since he was wearing a baseball uniform and leading a cheery band of Outsiders to great heights.

Nixon is now dead, Muhammad Ali is aging badly and is not in good health, the Vietnam War has moved over to make room for the Iraq War, and the turn into the 21st century has brought with it major changes in the way life in America is conducted.

Gibson has changed, too. He’s grown. There have been mistakes along the way, which he’s the first to admit. But he’s grown from those lessons and has moved on to be a successful businessman and family man.

“He’s so competitive, it’s incredible. That is why he’s had the success he’s had, because he never gives up,” says Goodwin.

“I have always been a high achiever,” says Gibson. “But I’ve noticed as I have gotten older I have changed. I’m not as selfish as I used to be. It used to be all about me. I’m embarrassed to admit it. I think my wife has really helped me. She is such a caring person.”