Leonard Skinner Dies at 77

[Police Moderator]

Tongue-in-cheek inspiration to Lynyrd Skynyrd dies at 77
He learned to embrace the fame and used it to his advantage later on.
Posted: September 20, 2010
By Matt Soergel

Leonard Skinner, the no-nonsense, flat-topped basketball coach and gym teacher whose name is forever linked with Jacksonville’s legendary Lynyrd Skynyrd, died in his sleep early Monday morning. He was 77.

His son, also named Leonard Skinner, said his father had a bowl of ice cream just past midnight — he loved ice cream — and then was found dead about 2:30 a.m. He had been a resident of St. Catherine Laboure Manor, a nursing home in Riverside, for a year, his son said. He had Alzheimer’s disease.

Mr. Skinner never asked to become part of rock ’n’ roll lore. He didn’t even like rock ’n’ roll. He was just a by-the-book gym teacher at Robert E. Lee High School, his alma mater, who, in the late 1960s, sent some students to the principal’s office because their hair was too long.

Gene Odom, who worked security for the band and survived the crash of its plane in 1977, said one of the longhairs was Gary Rossington. Rossington was guitarist in a rock band that would later name itself Lynyrd Skynyrd in a smart-aleck tribute to the gym teacher.

Read more: jacksonville.com

[Bob]

cool bit of lore.