Gunther was born in 1937 and attended Le Mars High School in Le Mars, Iowa. He attended Le Mars High School and, as a senior, was selected as the first-team center on the 1955 All-Iowa basketball team.
He enrolled at the University of Iowa and played for the Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball team at the forward position from 1956 to 1959. He scored 271 points (12.3 average) as a sophomore, 435 points (19.8 average) as a junior, and 482 points as a senior (21.9 average). He ranked 19th nationally in scoring during the 1958–59 season. He was selected as Iowa's most valuable player three consecutive years. He closed his college career with 1,188 points, tying the Iowa career scoring record set by Bill Logan from 1954 to 1956.
He was selected by the Philadelphia Warriors in the eighth round of the 1959 NBA draft but Gunther stated at the time that he was not interested in playing professional basketball. In the fall of 1959, after completing a tour of military service with the U.S Army, Gunther joined the Cleveland Pipers of the National Industrial Basketball League.

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