Before he was a champion for Parkinson’s patients, Kirk Gibson was a World Series champion, a Michigan State All-America selection, a sports icon.
He’s still all that, and more.
Gibson, 66, has been battling the disease for nearly a decade, and his Kirk Gibson Foundation for Parkinson’s keeps ramping up. His resolve gets stronger as the fight gets tougher, and he’s open about the personal challenges. His next step is to team with business and health care professionals to build exercise and therapy centers for Parkinson’s patients, who often feel isolated by their condition.
Patients can live a long time with Parkinson’s, even as the symptoms — tremors, muscular rigidity, speech fluctuations — progress, and insurance generally doesn’t pay for long-term care. Along with his managing director, Steve Annear, Gibson is trying to pull the afflicted from the shadows to help them live their lives. He lives his to the fullest, doing Tigers telecasts, golfing regularly, traveling for wilderness adventures. Gibson won World Series titles in 1984 with the Tigers and 1988 with the Dodgers. His mission now is to raise awareness and funds, his biggest and most important competitive endeavor yet.
Detroit News columnist Bob Wojnowski recently joined Gibson in his Birmingham office to discuss the road he’s traveled, and the road ahead.
(The transcript has been edited for clarity and length).
Question: You formed your foundation in 1996, and the mission keeps growing. With help from your friend here (Steve Annear), you’re focusing on building therapy and exercise centers for Parkinson’s patients?
Gibson: Ultimately, that’s the vision. What we’re learning is that movement helps; it helps deal with the symptoms. You get diagnosed, they give you some prognosis and they design a therapy plan. You get three, four weeks of paid therapy and after that, you’re on your own. What happens generally is people go to the therapy and then stay home because they can’t pay for it, or they’re just lazy. So, I call them and I say, “Where do you live? Let’s go work out. I’ll come get you; we can talk. You want to participate, do it. If you don’t, don’t.”
Q: You do get straight to the point. It’s all about motivating people?
Gibson: For anybody with Parkinson’s, you have to get up every day and say, “F— you.” At first, you’re motivated, but we want to have insurance extended and pay for group therapy. We’ve found when you bring everybody together, it’s like a big family, like a team. You see a totally different personality. You see people not worrying about their arm shaking, or that their hand is in their pocket. We’ve looked into these centers, and people walk in and right away, they smile.
More: Wojo: For Kirk Gibson, his battle widens and urgency grows
Q: How did Steve get involved? He doesn’t have Parkinson’s, but he has his own history of obstacles. He lost his left leg as a child.
Gibson: We met on the golf course two, three years ago. We talked a lot. And one day, he said, “Hey, I’d like to volunteer.” See, I was pretty good at hitting in clutch situations, but I don’t know if I was the right guy to lead day to day. (Steve) is like an angel that I’ve met late in my life. He has experience dealing with what I’m dealing with. He ran a marathon on one leg! That’s incredible. He’s taken this to the next level.
Q: Do you feel like Parkinson’s gave you this bigger purpose?
Gibson: Whether you have Parkinson’s or not, there are just times in people’s lives, as they get older, where there’s a deeper thought process into what’s going on. When you’re younger, you don’t have a worry in the world. Then, all of a sudden, your first call of duty. Then your second. I don’t know what call I’m on now, but it’s a helluva long-distance one.
Q: Do you ever wonder why the disease found you?
Gibson: I don’t ask, “Why me?” or any of that (crap). … It’s scary, but then I realized it wasn’t a death sentence. I’m still intense, not as intense. It bothers me that I’m not as athletic. I was pretty good at quite a few things. It’s a challenge to accept that it’s not that way anymore.
Q: Your family, wife and four kids, don’t have the disease, but they’re connected to it because they’re connected to you. How difficult is that for them?
Gibson: My family’s got all the “Parky” they want. This is what you have to weigh. I’m sure it’s something they don’t love. It’s not something one day you go, “Oh my, what a great trinket.” But they have it because of the path I’ve chosen.
Q: The symptoms come and go, but it is a progressive disease. You’re 66. Do you find it tougher to keep pushing?
Gibson: It doesn’t go away. There are times when I do things, a rigidity sets in. The disease kind of creeps through my limbs and I feel lethargic, achy. … I’m doing way less (Tigers) games this year; that’s all good. I golf mostly every day. I enjoy that because I like doing things with my friends. It’s so much fun. You really learn what makes you go, and who’s there for you, and who isn’t, as you go through life. I’m not a huge laugher, although I try to get around people that make me laugh.
Q: Where do you find your big victories now? Or is it a series of small victories?
Gibson: All of the above. Let’s say I just fouled 10 pitches off and struck out. I didn’t really win it, but I helped whoever’s hitting behind me because I just took 10 more pitches out of his arm. And maybe I softened him up for the next time I get up. It’s the way I look at just about anything I do. I think about it in a positive, productive fashion.
Q: As a player, you were fiercely competitive, even combative, at times. How have you changed?
Gibson: I’ve always been somewhat of a private person, socially nervous when people approach me. Totally the opposite now. Because I just feel it’s rewarding to know you’re helping people. When you help somebody, they find somebody. You never know who needs the help, and you never know who you’re gonna give the help to. That’s my new normal, and I’m gonna continue to try as many things as I can, within reason.
Q: You were diagnosed in 2015. Did you ever detect something was wrong before that?
Gibson: Yeah, sometimes. You can look, I have all this tape documented over the last 40 years, and you can see the progression of the disease. It was gradual, but just watch the way I talked, the way I moved. You can start to see it creep in. I think for sure there were signs in 2000, 20-plus years ago.
Q: When you meet newly diagnosed people, what do they want to know?
Gibson: They want to know what I did and what they’re supposed to do. I can only tell them what I did and why. I can make some suggestions of what they could do — this, this, or this. Or you can do nothing. It’s your choice.
Q: The origins of Parkinson’s are difficult to trace, but certainly, head injuries can be a factor. You had concussions playing football. Do you think CTE is part of it?
Gibson: Absolutely. That’s the thing, though, it’s too hard to decipher. With Parkinson’s, what’s too many head contacts? One time at Michigan State, I was returning a punt, and this guy named Mark Anderson is back there with me; one of us caught, one blocked. We’re playing Purdue, and the punt is coming, and I look up, and there’s a guy coming, and I caught the ball, and this guy lit my ass up. I was looking out my earhole. My helmet was broken; I specifically remember seeing white lightning.
Q: Wait, you returned punts?
Gibson: Not for very long. Just one. I told (MSU coach) Darryl Rogers, f— that. That’s the worst job in the world.
bob.wojnowski@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @bobwojnowski