By Mike London
Salisbury Post
SALISBURY — His right hip was replaced 13 years ago, the left one will be replaced soon, and he’s also fighting kidney issues.
Long-time Salisbury resident William “Jet” Gillispie is 76 now, rounding third toward 77. He announced recently that he’s retiring from the youth baseball coaching ranks.
“Even the Jet can’t out-run time,” Gillispie admitted. “I’ve wrapped it up. I’ve been in a lot of pain this summer, and those last few tournaments the boys played in, I had to ask myself, ‘Man, what are you doing out here?'”
In truth, Gillispie always knew why he was out there. He was still on baseball fields in his 70s because he loved the kids he helped teach and coach. Those kids kept him young at heart for a long time, but human bodies eventually wear out.
Gillispie’s son, Travis, and Shawn Keith, who is like a son to Gillispie, plan to keep the organization that the Jet founded in his hometown of Gastonia in the 1980s — the Carolina Tigers — going for years to come.
Gillispie started coaching baseball and basketball through the Gastonia Boys Club. His teams were known as the Little Tigers. As those boys got older, they became the Gaston Tigers. Since Travis took over from his dad as head coach, they’ve evolved into the Carolina Tigers.
Gilliespie’s last tournament as a Tiger assistant coach was a recent one in Virginia Beach, Va.
“We had good kids, but we didn’t have our best summer in the tournaments,” Gillispie said. “Just didn’t have the pitching this year, but we’ve never focused on wins and losses. We took our kids to a lot of places, took them to Florida, took them to New York. We’ve taught baseball to these kids, but we’ve also been teaching them the game of life. We taught them to have respect for teammates, coaches, opponents and umpires, taught them how to work together, taught them how to do the little things right, like keeping a clean dugout. We played in tournaments because that was the best way to measure how much our boys had improved, but those tournament scores were never what the Carolina Tigers were all about.”
If you look at a photo of the Carolina Tigers, no matter what year it’s from, you’ll see more brown and Black kids than you’ll normally see on youth baseball teams. The Tigers are open to all races, creeds and colors, so you’ll also see white faces, but the Tigers have Black coaches and always have targeted inner-city youngsters. They’ve made an effort to provide an opportunity for minority kids to play who might otherwise never have tried baseball.
“Lots of football kids,” Gillispie said. “So we try to get our tournament games done by July.”
The Tigers are a non-profit organization and never made a dollar from the baseball program. They’ve conducted more than their fair share of popcorn fundraisers to pay for travel expenses and tournament fees.
“There’s an awful lot that goes into this beyond the games,” Gillispie said. “The meals, the motels, things people don’t see.”
While they’ve always operated with tight belts, the baseball lessons that Jet, Travis and Shawn Keith taught found an eager audience. The Tigers played an aggressive brand of old-school baseball. Tigers learned to bunt and hit-and-run, learned to steal, learned how to manufacture runs. They never stood around waiting on someone to hit the ball over the fence.
“I have a friend in Gastonia, Leonard Hamilton, who wasn’t big enough to play in the NBA, but he taught himself everything there was to know about basketball and basketball took him a very long way as a coach,” Gillispie said. “We want our Tigers to know baseball like Leonard knows basketball. Not many will get to be pros, but if you understand the game, it can take you a long way.”
The Tigers have sent two to the pros and quite a few to college programs.
The Tigers enjoyed some magical moments, lifetime memories for all the players and coaches.
In 2017, they won the Metropolitan Junior Baseball World Series.
In 2023, the Tigers traveled to Florida and won a 14U World Championship tournament conducted by Perfect Game. They stole 30 bases and put up 66 runs in seven games. They beat a talented team from The Bahamas and a loaded squad from Puerto Rico. They won all their games against the American kids with $300 bats and personal pitching coaches.
Most of all, the Tigers learned the values of work.
“You can’t go home from the field, put that glove down and not pick it up again until the next game,” Gillispie said. “Baseball doesn’t work like that. You’ve got to constantly work at the game if you want to be successful.”
Gillispie taught the game to Travis, and Travis was good enough that he played on strong Wingate teams with Rowan County stars such as Kirk Huffman and Tim Still.
“Tim Still was like a son to me,” Gillispie said with a laugh. “But Tim could eat you out of house and home. He could eat two boxes of cereal at a time.”
The legend and the legacy of “Jet” Gillispie is secure, no matter what happens from here on out.
One of the two Black players who suited up for Gastonia Post 23 in the summer of 1964 at Sims Legion Park, Gillispie and Moe Hill broke the color barrier for North Carolina American Legion baseball. They were stars at a segregated high school. They weren’t trying to be Jackie Robinsons that summer, they just wanted to play summer baseball against the best competition they could find.
Gillispie has told the story often over the years about his Legion days, the pebbles that were thrown at him in the outfield, the brushback pitches, the names he was called by fans in hostile parks, the black cat that was tossed on the field, but he had “Big Moe” next to him that first year. He also had white teammates who stood with him and supported him when it wasn’t the popular thing to do.
He was a terrific player as a teenager, lightning-fast on the bases and in the outfield in his three years of American Legion ball in 1964, 1965 and 1966. When Gillispie finally was inducted into the North Carolina Legion Hall of Fame in Salisbury in ceremonies in 2015, he entered without bitterness and with “Big Moe” still standing right next to him.
Charlotte Post 9 was as good as any American Legion program in the country in the mid-1960s — one national title and one national runner-up finish — but Post 9 had its hands full with Gillispie. Several of those old Post 9 players showed up in Salisbury for the Hall of Fame induction out of respect for Gillispie and Hill. That said a great deal about the caliber of players they had been.
Gillispie hurt his arm playing football for Shaw University and could no longer play the outfield, so he switched to first base. When he was in the Air National Guard, he played four years (1969-72) in the Eastern Illinois Baseball League. He batted .444 for those seasons and won three batting titles. He wore out a few pitchers who made it to the majors. A man named Fred Kroner extensively researched that league for a book. That league had a glorious, 75-year run. He ranked Gillispie as the sixth-best player in the history of the league.
Gillispie played the game he loved a long time.
“I got to not only coach my sons, but to play with my sons,” he said. “You can’t ask for much more than that from life. For me, it’s always been faith and family first, and then baseball.”
He recalls as he was getting older that he was mostly the manager for a semi-pro team, but there was a day they only had nine for a game, so Gilliispie put on the catching gear.
“We were playing this real good team from Lancaster (S.C.),” he said. “But we had a big lefty from Cherryville (Alan Lindsay). He ate them up with curves and sliders. I had a round mitt, and I laid it right in the dirt, and I didn’t have to do too much. Lindsay threw a no-hitter.”
Gillispie experienced his first “Man, what am I doing out here” baseball moment when he was 55. He was on second base and tried to score on a single to right. He slid home safely, but as he lay on the ground, he realized he was no was no longer the Jet. It was time to leave the playing to younger men.
But he coached for another 21 years after that. He calculates that he coached for 53 years. That’s a pretty good run.
“I can leave the game now, knowing Travis and Shawn will carry on the Tigers,” Gillispie said. “They are outstanding coaches and they also are very good with the kids. I won’t be on the field now, but I’ll be in the stands. I’ll still be rooting for the Tigers.”
