JACK GIBSON OAM, (1929-2008)

Australian Rugby League Coach, Player and Commentator

John Arthur Gibson, always known as Jack, was born on 27 February, 1929 in Kiama, New South Wales.  He was the son of John Cooper Gibson and his wife, Esther Florence nee Thomson and the last of their children – Frank, Mary, Rose and Norene.

John Cooper Gibson (1876-1965) had served in the army in South Africa during the Boer War and, in 1909 married Esther Florence Thomson (1887-1971).  Esther Florence, known as Florence, was born in Eden, NSW, the daughter of Alexander Thomson and his wife Mary Ann nee Hart. In 1913, their first child, Francis Alexander, was born in Paddington. During WW2, Frank enlisted in the 2nd AIF in Queensland. In 1916, a daughter, Mary, was born in Waverley but died the same year.  Two more daughters, Rose and Norene were born after 1917.

 In 1902, John Cooper was probationary constable 7883 in the NSW Police Force but in 1907, he was dismissed. After 1916, his training helped him obtain a job as a bush policeman in Queensland.  During a fight between Aborigines and shearers, he was struck and lost the sight in one eye. The family then moved to Kiama on the south coast of New South Wales where Jack was born in 1929. On the electoral rolls between 1930 and 1937, John Gibson was described as a fisherman.  The family moved back to Gladesville, in Sydney, but efforts to set up small businesses were unsuccessful and the family moved to Caringbah in the Sutherland Shire.  On the electoral rolls, John Gibson is described as a labourer.  He died on 24 March 1965 and was buried at Woronora Cemetery in the Roman Catholic Lawn 2 section.  Florence Esther Gibson died on 17 May 1971and was buried at Woronora Cemetery in the same RC Lawn section.

 The family were living at Gladesville when Jack, at age 8, was sent as a boarder to St. Gregory’s College at Campbelltown. Homesick, he left after a year and then attended Marist Brothers, Eastwood. However he found it difficult to cope and was moved on to other schools.  The family were living in Telopia Avenue, Caringbah. Jack was a student at De La Salle College at Cronulla but re-enrolled at St. Gregory’s in 1942 and remained there for two years. Jack excelled at sport, especially rugby league, but academia did not interest him. In his Intermediate Certificate exam in 1944, he failed English and both Mathematics subjects but excelled at woodwork and metalwork.

 When Jack was fifteen, he left home and, with his mate, John Toohey, set out for Queensland.  They started off cutting cane, then moved to mustering sheep and cattle. It was a rough life and there were often scuffles where Jack relied on his fists to get out of trouble. During his time away from home, at boarding school at St.Greg’s and in Queensland, Jack was in regular correspondence with his parents and sister, Norene. His family were always supportive but, by 1949, Jack had had enough and returned to Sydney for good.

 Jack played A grade for Cronulla Junior Rugby League and a few games in Third Grade for St. George.  About this time, Jack was working as a doorman and sometimes chauffeur for Joe Taylor, the owner of the Celebrity Club in the Eastern Suburbs and he became friendly with Joe’s son, Ron, who played Rugby League.  A well known gambler, money was no object to Joe Taylor and, for his son. He set about recruiting seasoned players like Jack Lindwall from St. George and entered the Celebrity Club football team in the Eastern Suburbs Junior League competition. In 1951, the Celebrity Club won the A-grade premiership and Joe Taylor was impressed by the 6 foot 3 inches and 100 kilogram Gibson so employed him at the Celebrity Club and at Thommo’s, an illegal two-up school he ran.

 The growing popularity of the football Club was causing concern to the district’s senior club, Eastern Suburbs a foundation club in 1908, so they pulled some of the Celebrity Club players into grade, as they were entitled to do.  Players who refused to go were told they would be banned for life if they didn’t comply.  Initially chosen in third grade, Jack soon made his mark and was promoted to first grade. He played for Eastern Suburbs between 1953 and 1961 and earned a reputation as a hard man and a reliable forward who revelled in the tough stuff.  During the 1950s, Easts were regarded as the great underachievers of the premiership but Jack continued to impress and by the 1960 season was set to achieve his one hundredth first grade game.

 In 1954, Jack met Judy Worrad who had won the Miss Pacific beauty contest held at Bondi where she lived with her parents.  They were married on 21 May, 1955, at St. Anne’s Catholic Church at Bondi. After a honeymoon at Surfers Paradise in Queensland the Gibsons moved into a flat on Eloura Road in Cronulla.  With Judy pregnant, a block of land at 137 Nicholson Parade, near Gunnamatta Bay, was purchased and work commenced on building the family home.  In September, 1956, their first daughter, Suzanne was born.  Five more children were born – Tracey, Joanne, Luke, Matt and John.

After the appointment of Dick Dunn as first grade coach in 1960, there was a growing belief that Easts could achieve something special. Jack Gibson regarded Dunn as the best coach he ever had and the only one who showed confidence in him. ‘He made me a better player. He seldom used criticism; he preferred the good and positive things about a player’. At the end of the season, Easts were in the grand final for the first time since 1945 to play against the St.George team which, for the previous five seasons had been almost unstoppable.  In the first half, St. George held a slim lead 5-2 but unfortunately for Easts, went on to win the game 31-6 but many Easts fans predicted the worst was behind them and looked forward to the 1961 season.  Many were surprised when Jack Gibson was overlooked by selectors for the Australian side. George Crawford named him as one of The Sunday Telegraph’s players of the year and ‘Sydney’s most underrated footballer’.

 In early 1961, while playing cricket, Gibson slipped a disc in his back and after the pre-season trials need surgery to repair it.  Against doctor’s advice, he opted to play on and not consider retirement.  He also began writing a weekly column for The Sun. Easts struggled through the season and didn’t even make the top four.

 The Eastern Suburbs Leagues Club opened in September 1961 and soon began donating money to the football club.  When Neville Charlton was signed from Wests club, Jack asked for an immediate release declaring he would not play for Easts again.  He felt betrayed by the club as he and Charlton had previous history and he would be moved from his front row position to accommodate Charlton.  There were also issues when Easts demanded a transfer fee that Jack thought was excessive considering his service to the club. The ugly situation was only relieved when Easts reduced the transfer fee by half, the Newtown Club paid the fee and Jack signed on to play the 1962 season with them.

 Jack was appointed captain of the side but, in a pre-season match between Newtown and Easts at Henson Park, he broke his left collarbone.  After his return, the side were in good form during the season and finished in the top four after being second last in the previous season.  Drawn to play against St. George in the major semi-final in the first week of the finals, Jack delivered a challenge in his weekly column in ‘The Sun’. The result was St. George won 30-9.  The following week, Newtown played Western Suburbs and were defeated 25-13, ending their season.

 As the 1963 season approached, at age 34 and with lingering injuries, Jack asked Newtown to place him on the open transfer market with no fee.  The club agreed because of his ‘loyal service to rugby league’ and the Western Suburbs Club snapped him up. Jack soon established himself at the club and was happy playing with players like the Australian hooker Noel Kelly, Denis Meaney, Peter Dimond and Arthur Summons, captain of the side. At the end of the season, Wests finished second to St. George setting up a major semi-final clash which they won 10-8.  The 1963 grand final was played on a ground that looked like a swamp, before a record crowd of 69,860 and, once again, St. George prevailed winning 8-3.  As the players walked off, The Sun-Herald photographer John O’Gready captured an image of the two captains, Arthur Summons and Norm Provan, that became known as The Gladiators, won many awards and became the inspiration for the trophy awarded on Grand Final day to the winners.

 During the 1964-65 seasons, Jack Gibson was preparing for life after playing football.  He began to think about coaching, seeking advice from men like Arthur Summons who advised him to coach a team for only three years before moving on to avoid becoming stale. Jack’s last game was against St.George at Kogarah Oval on 22 August 1965.  Wests lost 37-10.   

 After being rejected for the coaching position at Easts for the 1966 season, Jack applied again in November, 1966 and narrowly won the vote against strong opposition.  This was the start of a coaching career that would eventually see Jack Gibson regarded as one of the greatest coaches in Australian rugby league, not only because of his five premierships as a coach.  With a professional approach, he introduced new coaching and training methods in the 60s, 70s and 80s that earned him the nickname ‘Supercoach’ and radically changed the game.

 With a thirst for innovation, Gibson was influenced by the coaching and management style of Vince Lombardi, the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers in the NFL competition and often travelled to the USA to watch their games and study their professionalism across all aspects of the business, including coaching, administration and TV broadcast rights.  At an NFL annual conference in 1972, he befriended San Francisco 49ers coach, Dick Nolan and was invited to study and observe the operations of the 49ers team. Adapting what he learned to Australian rugby league, the new coaching and training methods that Gibson introduced modernised the game and his professional attitude ensured better conditions for coaches.

 In 1967, Jack Gibson began his first-grade rugby league coaching career at Eastern Suburbs.  The previous year they did not win a match but under Gibson, in 1967, they came fourth in the competition and again finished fourth in 1968, considered by some as a footballing miracle. In 1969, he left Easts to coach St, George taking them to the Sydney Premiership in 1971.  He then left St. George to coach Newtown, where they made the final after not reaching the semi-finals since 1955.

 In 1973, with backing from the Eastern Suburbs Leagues Club behind them, Easts, now known as the Roosters, set about to win the premiership which had eluded them since 1945.  With a strong team in place, they secured former club-captain, Jack Gibson, as coach. Easts dominated the 1974 season winning 19 of 22 matches and, in the Grand Final, defeated Canterbury to win the Roosters first premiership in 29 years.  In season 1975, the dominance continued and on Grand Final day defeated St. George 38-0.  As well as winning the mid-week Amco Cup, Easts also defeated English champions, St. Helens R.F.C. in the inaugural World Cup Challenge.

 In 1976, Easts no longer dominated the competition and Gibson moved on to coach South Sydney in 1978 and 1979 but failed to get them as far as the semi-finals.  He then linked with Parramatta leading them to three consecutive premierships from 1981 to 1983.  After winning their first premiership in 1981, Gibson had six words for the jubilant blue and gold army of fans back at the Parramatta Leagues Club :’Ding, dong, the witch is dead’.  This was a quote typical of his laconic wit and many of his quotes are still referred to in rugby league circles. Later that night, some of those fans burned the old and decrepit Cumberland Oval grandstand to the ground. 

 Gibson’s last club coaching job was with Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks from 1985 to 1987. With few big name players to work with, he did an excellent job in developing a pool of local junior talent and, in the two years after his departure, the club made the semi-finals.

 In 1989, Gibson coached the New South Wales Blues in the State of Origin.  They lost 3-0 to a Maroons side coached by his friend and protégé, Arthur Beetson, a former Rooster.  The following year in 1990, his Blues defeated Beetson’s Queenslanders 2-1.  Gibson quit while ahead and took up a position at the Roosters in 1991 as manager with Mark Murray, former Test half-back, as coach.  He did this until 1994.

Coaching innovations:

·         First to use a computer to evaluate player performance including the first club coach to track and use individual player tackle counts.

·         His teams were the first to train with sides from other codes – he trained his team alongside soccer players and used Australian Football specialists as kicking coaches.

·         Introduced mascara under the eyes to reduce glare for night games under lights.

·         First to use weights-machines such as the Nautilus exercise machines.

·         First to use video extensively as a coaching device.

·         First to have players’ fitness scientifically tested in pre-season with the ‘pinch test’ (skinfold method).

·         First to insist upon his own integrated coaching team including co-ordinator (Ron Massey), fitness conditioner (Mick Souter) and injury treatment/rehabilitation (Alf Richards).

·         Made the ‘bomb’ a potent attacking weapon used by both Easts and Parramatta under John Peard.

 By 1977, the Gibson family had moved from Nicholson Parade to a home in Cowra Place, South Cronulla, overlooking the entrance to Port Hacking.  Always a devout Catholic, Jack and his family were regulars at Mass at St. Aloysuis’ Catholic Church, Cronulla and supported local charities.  Like their father, his sons attended St. Gregory’s College at Campbelltown. Jack had also acquired a farm at Beechwood, near Wauchope, where he frequently took his sons and, in the pre-season, members of the teams he was training. His team would play trial matches against the local Wauchope side.

 Jack’s son Matthew had moved to the farm to work with the quarter-horse stallions they kept on the property.  Jack and Matt were returning from a race meeting at Taree and driving a horse float when one of the stallions from the property, standing near the gate,  was ‘spooked’ and got his hind leg caught in the bullbar of the truck. When Matt tried to free the horse, it lashed out in a frenzy and bit his leg causing severe injury.  Flown by air ambulance to the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney, Matt’s leg developed gangrene and had to be amputated below the knee.  Devastated, Jack blamed himself but Matt got on with his life declaring: ’Maybe I needed some slowing down’.

 In the 70s, Jack was concerned by the effects that drug addiction was having on young people in the community. He had seen the children of friends also young men he had coached destroyed by their addiction.  To assist in the fight against illicit drugs, he loaned a house he owned in Gunyah Street, Cronulla, to the We Help Ourselves (WHOS) organisation. In 1981, Jack and his wife, Judy, were devastated when Luke, their eldest son, aged 18, was arrested and, in court, charged with injecting heroin.  From the age of fourteen,  Luke’s behaviour had been somewhat erratic and professional advice had been sought. However, Luke’s schizophrenia was not diagnosed until 1986. He struggled to cope with it and, on 9 January, 1988, Luke Gibson died of a heroin overdose.  He was 25.  Jack and Judy became fervent in their support of research into schizophrenia and he donated the proceeds from four books he wrote with Ian Heads to that cause.

 In 1988, Jack Gibson was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia ‘for service to rugby league as a coach’.  In 2000, he was awarded the Australian Sports Medal for being a five-times premiership winning coach.  On 17 April, 2008, Gibson was selected as Coach of Australian rugby league’s Team of the Century’.

 Since 2008, the Jack Gibson Cup has been contested each season by the Sydney Roosters and Parramatta Eels clubs, which he coached to successive premierships in 1974-75 and 1981-1983 respectively.

 In 2006, Jack Gibson was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.  He was admitted to the Garrawarra nursing home at Waterfall, where he died on 9 May, 2008, just 9 minutes before rugby league’s historic Centenary Test Match at the Sydney Cricket Ground.  His death was announced during the match by Peter Sterling, whom he had coached at Parramatta.  At all rugby league matches that weekend, a minute’s silence was held in respect for him. 

 Five days later Jack Gibson’s funeral was held at St. Aloysuis’ Church where he had been a ‘regular’ since the early 50s. He was farewelled by a large crowd, many of whom watched outside on a big screen. Roosters players formed a guard of honour as the hearse was driven away. Wearing an Eastern Suburbs track suit, Jack Gibson was buried at Woronora Cemetery beside his son, Luke.

 Judith Mary (Judy) Gibson died on 4 February, 2016.  She was cremated at Woronora Cemetery and her ashes placed with her husband Jack and son Luke. 

‘Played strong.  Done fine’.

 References:

·         Wikipedia

·         Andrew Webster, Supercoach:The Life and Times of Jack Gibson

·         Sport Australia Hall of Fame

·         Gary Lester, The Sharks

·         Ian Heads, March of the Dragons

·         Steve Haddan, History of the NSW Rugby League Finals ( to 1990)

·         Ancestry

·         NSW BDM

·         Woronora Cemetery

·         NAA/ WW2 Military Service Records

·         Trove