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Lynyrd Skynyrd should have listened

Maybe the strict high school coach who inspired the band's name was on to something with all of his rules.

September 25, 2010 at 6:37PM
Leonard Skinner
Leonard Skinner (Associated Press - Ap/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

If only Lynyrd Skynyrd had listened more closely to their strict old coach -- Leonard Skinner -- they might have been an even greater rock 'n' roll band.

And, more important, better human beings.

"It was among the duties of the coach to enforce the rules," Skinner once said.

Sometimes, though, a high school coach and a military veteran wearing an old-fashioned flat-top haircut is ignored or scoffed at by teenagers who think they know better.

That old high school coach died at 77 last week in a nursing home in Jacksonville, Fla., but his rules and his name will live on forever in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Leonard Skinner was the former high school basketball coach, assistant football coach and gym teacher at Robert E. Lee High in Jacksonville. When he was coaching and teaching in the late 1960s, it was part of the school's dress code that boys couldn't wear long hair.

"My father was a very strict disciplinarian," remembers Skinner's daughter Susie Moore. "Rules were black and white. There was no gray area. He did things by the book. That's what he stood for."

One day in his gym class, Skinner noticed that Gary Rossington, a guitarist in a high school rock 'n' roll band, had hair that flowed well below his collar. Skinner sent Rossington to the principal's office, and Rossington was suspended from school. As a mocking tribute to the stern gym teacher, Rossington, lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and the rest of the band members changed their name to Lynyrd Skynyrd.

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Skynyrd's guitar army would go on to international success, cranking out anthems such as "Freebird" and "Sweet Home Alabama." The old coach eventually embraced the fame that came with the rock 'n' roll version of his name but never quite understood why he was being ridiculed for simply doing his job and trying to make rebellious kids respect the rules.

That's not always such an easy task for a coach -- then or now.

Jacksonville Bolles coach Corky Rogers, the winningest high school coach in Florida history, knew Skinner when he coached at Robert E. Lee. He said Skinner probably was treating young Gary Rossington like he would treat one of his players.

"Us coaches are probably a little hard-headed when it comes to our rules," Rogers said, "but we have to be. A lot of times we are the last bastion of discipline in a kid's life. Unfortunately, a lot of kids don't learn to follow the rules at home."

Many members of Lynyrd Skynyrd never were good at following society's rules. If they had been, maybe their lives would have been as glorious as their music.

In 1977, the band went down in a plane crash that killed three members, including Van Zant -- the heart and soul of the group. But even without that tragedy, Lynyrd Skynyrd had more drug, alcohol and legal problems than most Southeastern Conference schools:

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• Rossington, driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, once nearly killed himself by driving his car into an oak tree.

• Drummer Artimus Pyle is a registered sex offender in the state of Florida.

• Guitarist Allen Collins was driving drunk in 1986 when he wrecked his car, claiming the life of his girlfriend and leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. He died in 1990 from complications related to the paralysis.

• Bass player Leon Wilkeson was found dead in a hotel room in 2001. He was just 49 and a victim of liver disease, which his son told a Jacksonville reporter was caused by "too much drinking."

In their most famous song, Skynyrd once sang, "I'm as free as a bird now. And this bird you cannot change."

In his way, an old high school coach tried to change them all those years ago.

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Leonard Skinner tried to get Lynyrd Skynyrd to follow the rules.

Maybe they should have listened to him instead of laughing at him.

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about the writer

about the writer

MIKE BIANCHI, Orlando Sentinel

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