Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? for two years at Northrop Corp. in Los Angeles before entering his deferred admittance at Harvard for his MBA, where he applied during his senior year at Notre Dame. "The rule was I had to go to work for two years and have a good work-life ex- perience to bring back into the business school," Gibbons said. "I double-checked with them and they said an NFL career would have been fine," he added with a chuckle. Academical ly, he again combined the best of all worlds. "In engineering, you look for specific answer to things," Gibbons ex- plained. "And with the MBA, you find the cor- rect answer that works in any given situation — but there are multiple answers." Over the past five years he has been Texas Tech while Keegan earns his busi- ness and finance degree from Arizona. That will leave daughter Meghan, a high school senior who has applied to Notre Dame among many other schools, as the lone remaining child left on the college payroll. "I'm going to get one heck of a raise in May," said Gibbons, who also became a grandfather for the first time this summer. Elated after the victory at Oklahoma, Gibbons is glad to see the defense come to the forefront again at Notre Dame. "It's hard to compare Gibbons and his wife, Alexis, who were married in 1981, have five chil- dren and became grandparents for the CEO at H.M. Dunn in Euless, Texas, a leader in the global distribution of quality aircraft components, sub assem- blies and large monolithic part struc- tures. It is the largest machined parts manufacturer for Bell Helicopter on the V-22 program and one of the top five suppliers for Lockheed Martin on the JSF program. Gibbons' oldest son TJ graduated the first time this past summer. PHOTO COURTESY TOM GIBBONS we had to stay on the field. We didn't have a bunch of substitute situations. We had to play every situation, every down." Having the smarts to play, though, the game today ver- sus 30 years ago," he said. "There is no way I would have played with the same skill set of today. It's a completely different game, but from a capability standpoint, never gets outdated. "Joe Restic and I were talking at the from the Naval Academy in 2004, and his second son Daniel received his me- chanical engineering degree from Vir- ginia Tech. Next spring, Sean will get his mechanical engineering degree from national championship reunion this year at the Michigan game that we had 4.6 speed on the field, but 4.2 speed in our minds," Gibbons reflected. "What we studied and what we understood, we knew where to be and were able to get there faster." Beyond football, Gibbons has been a five-star performer in life. ✦