Early Life
Gary Blair is the son of Lee, a plaster foreman, and Jean, a housewife. He was raised in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Dallas. He grew up playing baseball, and as a 128-pound center fielder at Bryan Adams High School, he received all-city honors in 1963. Following his high school graduation in 1963, he enrolled at Texas Tech University, where he failed out of architecture, and moved to California to become a restaurant manager. He got a U.S. Army draft notice in 1969, and decided to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps, completing a four-year tour of duty. He was stationed in Okinawa during his duty. After his tour, he lived in the Los Angeles area, running a restaurant in Costa Mesa and Culver City. At age 27, he used his G.I. Bill to earn a bachelor's degree in health and physical education with a minor in journalism from Texas Tech. He also played a year of baseball for the Red Raiders—he was a defensive center fielder with self-described poor hitting skills. He earned his master's degree in education from the school in 1974.
When head women's basketball coach Marsha Sharp retired from Texas Tech in 2006, Blair got calls from his friends to take over the position. Blair stated, "It wasn’t the right fit or the right time. Timing is everything in coaching."
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