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    Gary was born in Queens, NY, but as a baby moved to Douglas, AZ, which is right on the border of Mexico near the southeastern corner of Arizona. He was one of five siblings (brothers Roy, Doug and Barry, and sister Susie) growing up in Douglas and was very active in high school sports, band, stage plays and musicals.

    He attended Cochise Junior College where he played on the baseball team and was the student manager of the men’s basketball team. One of his duties as manager was to be a one-man stats crew for basketball by keeping the game and season statistics for the team.

    Gary then attended the University of Arizona in Tucson, where he was the student manager for the Wildcat baseball team under coach Jerry Kindall. Gary also was on the university’s statistics crew for football and basketball, and later worked in the sports information office. He graduated from Arizona with a journalism degree.

    A victim of budget cuts in the University of Arizona athletic department, Gary took a job as an assistant sports information director at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. He worked publicity and statistics for the football, men’s basketball and baseball teams at NU. While at Arizona and Northwestern, Gary won numerous awards for his publications from the College Sports Information Directors of America, also known as CoSIDA.

    Gary then took a job in statistics at the national office of the NCAA in Kansas City, KS (the office later relocated to Indianapolis). He was the main statistician for Division I men’s basketball for 30 years, compiling weekly, then daily, statistics for basketball, as well as compiling the basketball and Final Four records books.

    He also helped the men’s basketball committee with selections and seeding of the men’s basketball tournament by supplying the Ratings Percentage Index, better known as the RPI, for 30 seasons. Because of his work with the RPI, Gary was featured in the March 3, 2003 issue of Sports Illustrated.

    While at the NCAA, Gary worked with several other sports in all three divisions, including being the main football contact for statistics and records his last five years at the NCAA. He also worked numerous events including the Men’s Final Four, the Men’s College World Series and the Division I Wrestling Championships.

    In all, Gary wrote or compiled more than 80 publications including record books and championship media guides for several sports. Besides the numerous records books that Gary wrote for the NCAA, he is also the author of the novel Artie.

    While at the NCAA, Gary was the main contact for historical questions for several sports through the years. When he left the NCAA and moved to San Diego, he took a job working with The History Lady, Jeanette Alessio Way. Gary worked with Jeanette for five years before she passed away.

    Now as Gary the History Guy, he does one-hour monthly presentations throughout the entire San Diego area as well as presentations over Zoom on the internet.

    On the personal side, Gary was married to the former Annie Aguirre of Douglas, AZ, for 40 years. They had three children: Cory, Amanda and Tyler. Amanda is working in the environmental field, while Tyler is an actor also works in movie production and special effects. Cory was an actor and stuntman in Old Tucson. He passed away from Covid in January 2021.

     When Gary moved to San Diego, he reunited with the former Jonna Vikdal of Needles, CA. Jonna lived in Douglas, AZ, for a couple of years during her childhood and attended the same church as Gary. At age 11, Gary and Jonna performed together in the high school musical performance of South Pacific. They reunited after 42 years apart and were married in June 2017. Besides his three children, Gary also has one granddaughter, three step-children and six step-grandchildren.

    Gary has coached youth baseball for more than 32 seasons. He was also the coach of the NCAA National Office co-ed and men’s softball teams for more than 20 years. He was the baseball official scorer for the Indianapolis Indians (Triple-A Pirates) for 11 seasons.

    Gary worked with church youth groups for more than 20 years. He has been on numerous church mission trips including 10 one-week post-Katrina trips to New Orleans to help rebuild houses after the hurricane disaster.

    He was on the Kansas City committee for Special Olympics for 10 years, working several events and helped raise thousands of dollars for Special Olympics. Through the years, Gary has also been a mentor to several boys in junior high and school high programs, as well as reading programs for 2nd and 3rd graders.

    In San Diego, besides being busy as Gary the History Guy, he also works numerous sporting events for the University of San Diego.