Gibson was the son of farmers in Eldorado, Texas who were hit hard by the Great Depression, but still managed to send Gibson to Washington State University (WSU), due in part to assistance from his uncle Arthur "Buck" Bailey, a noted baseball coach at WSU [REF].
He then attended Stanford University, where Gibson received an MBA in 1940 and a Ph.D. in 1950, both from the Stanford Graduate School of Business [REF].