I don’t have any memories of Kirk Gibson the football player, but I do remember hearing friends’ dads up in Michigan in the early 80s talking about Gibson made a big mistake picking baseball over football. This was before he truly broke in as a full-timer with the Tigers and was battling some injuries. These guys all were silenced by 1984, of course, and obviously Gibson ended up making a pretty wise choice.
But as Dan Bickley of AZCentral reminds us, thinking that Gibson could’ve/should’ve gone to the NFL is not crazy talk. He spoke with Gibson about his football career and what led him to baseball instead. And old story for some, but I imagine a lot of people in their 30s and younger may not realize how good a receiver Gibson was at Michigan State. He would have been a high draft pick in 1979 if he had committed to football and probably could have made a pretty good go of it in the NFL.
At least until he was destroyed by injuries.
