The following is a Gilby rememberance from Snohomish basketball legend Melina Flores, who was an SHS senior during the 1995-96 season, when Keith Gilbertson Sr. made the transition to coaching Panther girls basketball after more than 30 years of coaching the boys team. Flores is currently an assistant coach at Princeton after a stellar collegiate career as a point guard at Stanford and a pair of two-year stints as a professional player with the WNBA’s Miami Sol and Lithuania’s Lietuvos Telekomas. She previously coached women’s basketball at the University of the Pacific, Lehigh and Yale before joining Princeton’s staff in 2007.
I will always consider myself one of the lucky ones: one of the people to have interacted with Coach Gilbertson. I remember when we heard that Gilby would be joining the girls basketball staff as an assistant. All of the girls were a little hesistant — we’d heard stories about his intensity, and we weren’t sure how that would translate to our game and teams.
But when he actually set foot on the court as a coach, he was the happiest, most positive personality out there. He was always helpful; it seemed like he really enjoyed being out there with us. And the feeling was certainly mutual.
While my experience with Coach Gilbertson at SHS was a good one, it was what happened years after my time as a Panther that had the biggest impact. After my college years and a very short stint in the professional game, I decided to become a coach. My first stop was at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA. I hadn’t been there more than a couple of months when I received a small, type-written envelope in my mailbox. Inside it was a “Note from the Coach.” Gilby had tracked me down and took the time to wish me well and also update me on all things related to SHS athletics. I read that note over and over again. It meant so much to me — I had joined the coaching ranks and he was welcoming me in.
As I bounced around from program to program trying to find the right fit as a coach, a letter from Coach Gilbertson always found its way to my work mailbox. He kept tracking me down and bringing a smile to my face. I still have the first note he sent me — and I always will.
Please visit CoachGilb.org to make a donation or to hear more about the Keith Gilbertson Sr. Memorial Scholarship endowment fund
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The following is a Gilby rememberance from former Snohomish High cross country coach Dan Parker, currently the XC coach at Glacier Peak High. A 1970 SHS grad and three-year track/cross country letterman under coach Larry Eason, Parker coached the Panther girls XC teams to four state team titles in 1995, 1996, 2002 and 2003 before moving to Glacier Peak when it opened in 2008 and adding a fifth XC state title in 2010 while coaching the GPHS girls . In 1994, Parker wrote the nomination that led to Keith Gilbertson Sr. becoming a charter member of the Washington Cross County Coaches Hall of Fame.
He was always COACH to me. Even after I was 50, I couldn’t bring myself to refer to him as anything other than Coach. His first name WAS Coach. And he was one of the few people that called me Danny. It is like we were frozen in time: he forever the coach and me always the student-athlete. In reality, he never did stop teaching me.
Coach Keith Gilbertson Sr. developed state, national and world record setters as the track and cross country coach at Snohomish. (Bud Rothgeb photo/Gilbertson family archives)
I remember the first time I saw Coach Gilbertson, handing out those old cotton red sweats to his athletes in a stuffy drying closet in the back of the old B building locker room at SHS, air permeated with the smell of Atomic Balm, the grandfather of Ben-Gay and Icy Hot. He wasn’t a big man – runners like Cliff Hurn towered over him – yet his presence filled the room, and there was never any question as to who was running the show.
Jim Freeman, a superb distance runner and marathoner in the ’60s and ’70s, taught math at the old Snohomish Junior High. He took it upon himself to informally coach (no actual junior high XC teams at that time or seventh-grade football) those boys at SJHS who showed the greatest promise in long distance running, based on how they ran in P.E. Among those lucky few were Ken Hoerath, Chuck Swoboda, Paul Moon and myself, all seventh-graders in the fall of 1964.
Freeman would train us after school on the expansive bog at the junior high or run us up to the high school to train on that hallowed ground. We stood or ran in awe of the “older” boys and, in particular, their seemingly gruff coach, Coach Gilbertson. His runners’ respect for him, even in my early brief observations, was obvious. As I studied their interaction I began to dwell on the thought that I, too, would enjoy the privilege of being coached by this man to whom I refer to as the Father of Washington State Cross Country.
Never happened. We seventh-graders were allowed to run as non-scorers in the high school races that season. It gave us an immense feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction when we would pass a high school runner from Snohomish or any other team. At the end of the race Coach Freeman would ask us about our race and point out what we had done well and, of course, not so well, and we would listen attentively.
Those few well-placed words he spent on us . . . made us feel like somebody, and made us even more determined to make the effort to really be SOMEBODY!
But then Coach Gilbertson would stop and weigh in with words of encouragement, and we would revel in that attention. I mean, he was the HIGH SCHOOL coach! What did he care about us wimpy little seventh-graders? Well, those few well-placed words he spent on us were etched in our memories. They made us feel like somebody, and made us even more determined to make the effort to really be SOMEBODY!
At that time I looked forward to four years of running cross country and track under the guidance of Coach Gilb. But in 1966 he signed on to coach the fall sport he first loved, football, as an assistant to Coach Armstrong. The football program’s gain was cross country’s loss but Coach Gilbertson had left his mark on my sport.
In the mid-1950s Coach Gilbertson was unwillingly separated from his coaching position in football at SHS for doing the unthinkable – holding high school athletes accountable for their actions and, as a result, losing, seemingly unforgivable offenses at the time. But Coach Gilb could never NOT coach. Instead he embraced a new fall sport in its infancy, cross country, and “the rest is history.” I’m not sure how much he knew about the sport or about coaching the sport, but no one, it seems, was a quicker study. According to “The History of Washington State Cross Country,” which ranked the best boys teams in the state decade by decade, Snohomish High School dominated the sport from 1959-69 (1959 being the first year of a cross country “state meet”). Coach Gilbertson was the guiding force in the first seven years and in that time span his teams won two state championships and ran second in three state meets. The other two state meets saw the Panthers place fifth – obviously “down” years.
- 1959, fifth, 31 schools, 2 miles
- 1960, first, 33 schools
- 1961, fifth, 42 schools, 2.3 miles
- 1962, second. 23 schools (two divisions – small schools under 1700)
- 1963, second, 26 schools
- 1964, second, 33 schools
- 1965, first, 26 schools
A second state championship was not a bad way for the Coach to ease out of the sport. In the early years his teams were competing against schools with student populations much larger than that of Snohomish; there were no divisions until 1962. His teams were always competing against many more teams than we compete against at state today – 16. And compete they did!
Coach Gilbertson had the ability to bring out the utmost from a collection of individuals with seemingly no inherent athletic ability. Those runners had some things in common: a willingness to push themselves to places of pain where most fear to go, and an unwavering trust in a unique man who asked them to go there.
Coach Gilbertson had the ability to bring out the utmost from a collection of individuals with seemingly no inherent athletic ability. Those runners had some things in common: a willingness to push themselves to places of pain where most fear to go, and an unwavering trust in a unique man who asked them to go there. Those runners are unknown to most of you, but they were the heroes of my youth: Ron Stjern, Walt Hoerath, Terry Phillips, Tom Gilpin, Lyman Pease, Mike Evans, Wayne and Al Bartelheimer, Buzz Schilaty, Jim Sanders, Steve Linse. They were the stars, names as easy to remember, for me, as their races and running styles were.
And that brings to mind another of Coach Gilbertson’s amazing gifts: the ability to remember the name of every athlete that ever had the good fortune to call him Coach, no matter how insignificant their contribution to the team might have been. As a teacher who has trouble remembering students’ names from one year to the next, I’ve always been blown away by that ability of his.
Sometime around 2005, we found an old track jersey (Coach Gilbertson was also a legend as a track coach) from the late ’50s, tucked away in the recesses of the locker room. It had discolored from white to cream, a red “S” with wings was embroidered on the front, and someone had printed a red “1” on the back. I thought Coach would get a kick out of the artifact so I showed it to him.
After looking at it, nearly 60 years after it was last worn by the athlete, Coach Gilb matter-of-factly said, “Oh yeah, that is Joe Miller’s track jersey …” I’m sure he also mentioned the year, the events Miller competed in and his exact times and distances.
The problem is I CAN’T remember.
For photos of Keith Gilbertson Sr.’s state-championship cross country teams, click here.
To join the effort to endow an annual SHS scholarship in Coach Gilbertson’s honor, click here.
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Remodeling and new construction at Snohomish High School includes new lettering on the Keith Gilbertson Sr. Sports and Fitness Center at Snohomish High School. (Keith Olson photo)
Thousands of Snohomish High School students and athletes will long remember their association with Keith Gilbertson Sr., and thanks to an action by the Snohomish School Board, thousands more will be linked to the legendary high school coach and educator.
The school’s one-year-old sports and fitness center has been renamed in honor of Gilbertson, who died in February at age 83 after a 61-year career as an SHS coach and English teacher, including the past 31 years as an unpaid assistant coach in football and girls basketball.
With the lettering already in place on the Keith Gilbertson Sr. Sports and Fitness Center, the Snohomish School Board formally adopted a resolution on the renaming of the facility during its Sept. 28 meeting. Gilbertson also will be honored during halftime of the Panthers’ Sept. 30 football game against Monroe at Veterans Memorial Stadium.
In addition to his on-field coaching expertise, Gilbertson earned a reputation as a conditioning genius and was also widely viewed as a mentor and role model in both education and athletics. The idea to rename the fitness center in his honor came from Snohomish School District athletic director Mark Albertine and SHS football coach Mark Perry, both longtime Gilby coaching colleagues.
“He was a stickler for doing things the right way,” Albertine says of Gilbertson in the Snohomish Country Tribune. “He held himself to a higher standard and he expected the players to do the same. So with that mind-set he really epitomized striving for excellence, striving to be the best that you can.”
One of four speakers to address the school board prior to its passing of Resolution No. 16-11, Perry declared the renaming effort a wide-ranging affair. “Everyone in the community made this happen,” he said, citing letters of support generated from fellow coaches, SHS administrators, SHS students and student-athletes.
Others speaking on behalf of the resolution included SHS student body secretary Grifynn Clay, former SHS basketball great and 2009 SHS grad Katie Benson, and former Panther football great Chris Utt, a 1977 SHS grad and current Glacier Peak High School teacher.
Clay told the school board that the SHS student body fully endorses renaming the fitness center in honor of Gilbertson.
“He was the grandpa I never had,” Benson said to underscore the close relationships Gilbertson developed with players on the girls basketball team in the latter part of his coaching career. “What made him great was his training style. What made him legendary was how he cared for the athletes.”
Utt recalled knowing Gilby as teacher, coach, colleague and friend and shared memories of a Christmas card he received from Gilbertson during his senior year at SHS after the Panthers had won their first state football championship. ”He wrote the usual things, but what stuck with me was something he wrote at the very end: ’Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be your coach.’ I still remember that 35 years later, and I still have the card. He was one of a kind.”
School board member Jay Johnston said of Gilbertson: ”He was so inspirational,. We’ve had a number of great coaches at Snohomish over the years, but he went way beyond what anyone else has done.”
SHS principal Beth Porter told the board members, “His dedication to Snohomish High School is unmatched.”
As an ongoing tribute, the Snohomish Education Foundation has launched a fundraising effort to endow a perpetual Keith Gilbertson Sr. Memorial Scholarship at the high school. Check out CoachGilb.org for details about two four-year, renewable $1,000 scholarships to be awarded starting in 2012, or to see stories and photographs from Coach Gilbertson’s legendary career that endeared him to many and earned him enshrinement in multiple halls of fame. To donate to the endowment effort, click here.
This is a southside view of the newly named Keith Gilbertson Sr. Sports and Fitness Center, entering the the Snohomish High gym. (Keith Olson photo)
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Coach Keith Gilbertson Sr. “is still teaching us,” reflects Snohomish football great Curt Marsh while sharing a story about the drive home following his eulogy of the Snohomish High School coaching legend last February during a community memorial service in the SHS gym.
Curt Marsh as a prep All-American in Snohomish in 1976. (Tribune photo)
Gilbertson spent 61 years at as an SHS teacher and coach, including the last 31 as an unpaid volunteer assistant coach in football and basketball prior to his death in February at age 83. He coached Marsh in both sports at Snohomish High and continued to work with him as an offseason conditioning coach throughout Marsh’s collegiate and professional football career.
Marsh is a 1977 Snohomish High graduate and a former first-round NFL draft pick of the Oakland Raiders out of the University of Washington. To join him in the endowment effort for the Keith Gilbertson Sr. Memorial Scholarship, click here.
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