Lynyrd Skynyrd inspiration dies in north Florida
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Leonard Skinner, the basketball coach and gym teacher who inspired the name of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, died Monday in Florida, his daughter said. He was 77.
Skinner died in his sleep at the St. Catherine Laboure Manor in Jacksonville, where he had been living for about a year, his daughter Susie Moore said. Skinner had Alzheimer’s disease.
He was working at Robert E. Lee High School in Jacksonville in the late 1960s when he sent a group of students to the principal’s office because their hair was too long. Those students later formed a band, using a variation of Skinner’s name for their own.