Wavie Gibson III fell in love with wrestling when he became a wrestling manager in the seventh and eighth grades at Mardela High School on the Eastern Shore.

Gibson was on the varsity baseball and wrestling teams at Mardella. He became the school's first state wrestling champion going undefeated while coached by Dave Decker.

He attended the University of Maryland Eastern Shore on a full academic scholarship and wrestled for the Hawks. As a senior in 1986, he placed third in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference to become an Eastern Regional qualifier and be named his team's outstanding wrestler.

After graduation, Gibson moved to Baltimore and became an educator like his parents. He quickly sought out Walbrook Senior High School's wrestling team and started practicing with them. He became an assistant coach in 1987 and the team was undefeated and won an MSA conference championship. Gibson became head coach in 1989. In 1992-93 his team led Baltimore City into the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association where they had nine regional qualifiers, finished third in the 3A/4A East, and had six state qualifiers make their tournament debuts. Gibson coached some of the first state place-winners from Baltimore City.

Gibson transferred to Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in 1999 and his success continued. His Poly teams were ever present in the top rankings of Baltimore City Public Schools, and they became the first Baltimore City team to become a number-one seed and host a regional dual meet tournament. Gibson's seniors from 1999 to 2014 had an amazing college acceptance rate of 89 percent. While coaching at Poly, Gibson was also an assistant coach from 1999-2006 for the Woodlawn Wolfpack in the Maryland Junior Wrestling League, where he had the pleasure of coaching his son, Wavie Gibson IV.

While maintaining his busy coaching schedule, Gibson was able to find time to serve the wrestling community as an MPSSAA state wrestling committee member and Baltimore City District IX wrestling representative since 1993. He is currently a voting member of the Maryland Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and has hosted numerous tournaments, citywide practices, organizational meetings and other events to promote and support wrestling.