Bobby Gibbs, director of Albuquerque Boys and Girls Clubs for decades, dies at 88

Bobby Gibbs’ last name could just as well has been “Gives.”

As in gives and gives and gives.

(Full disclosure: The above lead is virtually identical to that of a 1999 Albuquerque Journal story written by the same reporter. But it applies no less, perhaps even more so, today.)

Gibbs, an athlete and coach who went on to serve for decades as executive director of the Albuquerque Boys & Girls Clubs and as executive secretary of the New Mexico High School Coaches Association, died on Oct. 16 — a day after his 88th birthday.

“Bobby is one of our unsung heroes,” Jim Hulsman, the longtime Albuquerque High boys basketball coach, told the Journal for that story in 1999.

Less unsung with the passage of time, Gibbs was inducted into the New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame in 2006. He also was widely known for his unflagging devotion to Notre Dame football — he had a “Notre Dame room” in his Northeast Heights home — and his love for tennis. He described himself as the city’s best Class D tennis player, while smilingly acknowledging there existed only Class A, Class B and Class C. Gibbs was far better known, though, even celebrated, for his unfailing generosity, his organizational skills and his boundless energy.

“Bobby just gives and gives and gives,” said the late Henry Sanchez, the former Bernalillo High School and New Mexico Highlands basketball coach, in that same 1999 Journal story, on the occasion of Gibbs’ retirement from the Boys & Girls Clubs.

Gibbs continued as executive director of the NMHSCA until 2008.

Sanchez said his son Darren, who played for Hulsman at AHS and for his father at Highlands, “was (at the Boys Club) all his life.”

Barbara Madaras, an Albuquerque Realtor, worked for Gibbs at the Boys Clubs as his executive assistant during two separate stints in the 1970s. Later, she served a term as president of the board of the Boys & Girls Clubs board of directors.

What set Gibbs apart in his job, Madaras said in a recent interview, was immense likability coupled with unfailing reliability and efficiency. He could be persistent as well, she said, but in the most non-threatening way.

“People liked him because he liked people,” Madaras said. “He was so caring about so many different things, particularly the youth of Albuquerque.

“He could multi-task like nobody I ever knew. … He just knew how to contact people in the interest of the Boys & Girls Club, make them feel like they were doing something special, which they were. But he could make that happen.”

Born in Madrid, New Mexico, Gibbs moved to Albuquerque with his family as a youth and was a four-sport letterman — football, basketball, baseball and tennis — at the now-defunct St. Mary’s High School in the 1950s.

He went on to play basketball and baseball at College of St. Joseph, later the University of Albuquerque, before the school closed in 1987. After earning his bachelor’s degree there, he earned a master’s in education at UNM while beginning his coaching career at Highland High School in 1961. He also taught history at HHS.

At Highland, as an assistant to Bill Gentry, he helped the Hornets win big-school football state titles in 1963 and 1965. Serving under first Mickey Miller, then Tom Hogg, he was on the HHS bench when the Hornets made the Class AAAA basketball championship game in 1966 and 1969 — losing both times to coach Ralph Tasker’s Hobbs Eagles.

In the ‘60s, Gibbs also headed the Wells Park summer basketball league, in which college, high school and recreational-level players honed their skills. On cement courts at Wells Park and Heights community centers, prep standouts like Highland’s Ernie Jones and Sandia’s Billy Kennedy were afforded the chance to challenge Lobo stars of the day like Mel Daniels and Ben Monroe.

Gibbs left coaching in 1970s to take over the Boys Club. The following year, responding to a need he’d observed, he founded a developmental basketball league.

A competitor throughout his life, Gibbs believed participation was just as important.

“Before (his developmental league), kids that weren’t good enough to make the team didn’t get to play,” he said, “and that bothered me. I thought all the kids should play, and now it’s part of the rules that every kid gets to play half the game.”

In 1975, Gibbs added the NMHSCA executive director’s position to his workload. In 1983, he brought the National High School Athletic Coaches Association to Albuquerque. When it appeared the NMHSCA’s annual North-South All-Star football and basketball games might die for lack of fan interest and financial backing, he made sure that didn’t happen.

In 1987, the Boys Club became the Boys and Girls Club, adding a location in Rio Rancho to existing locations in Old Town and the Northeast Heights.

Through it all, Gibbs never failed to find time for his family: his wife, Virginia, daughter Lesly, son Robert and five grandchildren.

Taylor Stern, Gibbs’ granddaughter, parlayed her work with UNM’s sports information department as a student into a job as social media coordinator with the Dallas Cowboys. More recently, she’s worked as marketing director for a firm associated with the LIV golf tour and and five-time major tournament champion Brooks Koepka.

None of it would have happened without the influence, counsel and guidance of her grandfather.

“The only reason I started in sports was because of him,” Stern told the Journal in a 2016 interview. “(Football) became a passion of mine because I loved my grandfather so much.”

Virginia Gibbs died in 2016. Gibbs also is survived by his brother, Charlie, his old teammate at St. Mary’s.

A rosary is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Nov. 15 at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, 619 Copper NW. A mass will follow at 9:30 a.m. on Nov. 16 at the same location.