sports spotlight: Joe Gilbert
Joe Gilbert
By Mike Tupa
February 2, 2024
BARTLESVILLE AREA SPORTS REPORT
JOE GILBERT
Joe Gilbert coached high school sports for 66 years.
His career golden resume included two state championships, numerous state runner-up trophies, amassed nearly 4,000 career wins, received induction (2019, a year prior to his death) to the National High School Hall of Fame (in the same class as Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker and other national superstars), became the subject of major articles by ESPN, USA Today and other well-known publications and coached in a basketball fieldhouse named in his honor at least 25 years prior to his passing.
Not bad for a guy who never worked outside Small Town, USA — aka Barnsdall, Oklahoma — during his eight decades as a coach. In fact GIlbert never lived outside Barnsdall — a blue-collar storied hilly hamlet, population about 1,030, whose proudest days of prosperity have faded into memory — from the day in 1954 that he hitch-hiked into town as a college graduate looking for a job as a teacher and a coach until his death in mid-2020.
Gilbert’s passionate and steel-tempered character reflected the city of Barnsdall — the birth place of singer Anita Bryant, a temporary youthful home of future acting legend Clark Cable, retired USN rear admiral Thomas Hall (who played for Gilbert in Gilbert’s first year at Barnsdall), and site of a massive tornado in 2024 from which the community snapped back quickly with communal determination and gritty resolve.
Gilbert arrived in Barnsdall in 1954 after he completed his education at Northeastern Oklahoma (Tahlequah). But that connection was nearly not made. Prior to that, Gilbert had signed a pro baseball contract with a Class D minor league team in the Kansas Oklahoma Missouri League.
But he realized his first night in uniform he didn’t have the tools to play on that level. The team manager kindly tore up his contract, allowing Gilbert to pursue his college education and a job afterward.
During the decades Gilbert became a man of all seasons — head coach of varsity fastpitch softball in the fall, head coach of both the varsity boys and varsity girls basketball teams in the winter and head coach of the varsity baseball team in the spring. For decades he also coached baseball teams in the summer.
He maintained that killer fall-through-spring schedule until his mid-60’s, when he volunteered to give up coaching the boy’s basketball and baseball programs. However, to the end of his life he continued to coach fastpitch softball, girls basketball and girls slowpitch softball — even to almost age 90.
That doesn’t nearly tell the whole story. Gilbert fed off an unbelievable reservoir of energy — while supported by his lovely wife Joyce, who volunteered as concession stand worker or scorekeeper throughout the same time.
Gilbert seemed just as happy pushing a dust broom over the court of the empty basketball arena after everyone had gone home, to dragging the basepaths of the softball and baseball fields to performing all the so-called mundane tasks of making sure the games would go on as scheduled.
He lived for the competition. He internalized it inside a calm, smiling demeanor masking the fire and pure joy of the battle that churned inside him.
Gilbert would go to deep extremes to prepare a wet field for play, even buying kitty litter to pour on the pitching mound or other slick spots to make them safe.
Joe Gilbert
__________
Standing somewhere around 6-foot-or-a-little taller, as lean and as fit as a middleweight boxer and short-cropped white hair crowning his dome, Gilbert was the ultimate gentleman toward referees, opposing coaches, media and others.
He didn’t rant and rave and didn’t scream at his players. He somehow controlled the agony when they made simple mistakes and tried to correct them clearly but calmly. He wasn’t a hugger — the arms of his love were invisible but real.
Up through his 70s he often made weekend drives up to the small town in his native Missouri where his elderly mother lived and did her yard work or whatever other chores and acts of kindness he could.
His major legacy is the impact he had on his student athletes, coaching many grandchildren of grandparents that had played for him many decades earlier. Stories are told of Gilbert’s quiet generosity to students who didn’t have the money for proper equipment or meals during road trips.
The depth of his kindness in every way is immeasurable — kept track of only by the angels.
He also exemplified a combination of personal dignity and respect for others.
It seems overwhelming to characterize Gilbert.
However, perhaps it could be as simple as this: He loved the game, loved his players, loved those around him and loved his opponents.
Few great people have left behind so many genuinely close friends and admirers — the giant beacon of his presence beamed brightly throughout the nation from the small town of Barnsdall. What a giant of a man.