Lynyrd Skynyrd Namesake, Gym Teacher Leonard Skinner, Dies

Leonard Skinner, a tough-as-nails Florida gym teacher whose firm stance against boys with long hair inspired the name of the famous Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, died Monday.

Skinner, who had Alzheimer’s Disease, died in his sleep at a nursing home in Jacksonville. He was 77.

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Mr. Skinner earned a place in rock ‘n roll history when he sent Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Gary Rossington and a few other shaggy-headed students to the principal’s office during his tenure as teacher and basketball coach at Robert E. Lee High School in the mid-60s because they boys were violating the school’s no-long-hair for males policy.

“It was against the school rules. I don’t particularly like long hair on men, but again, it wasn’t my rule,” Skinner said.

Rossington returned with his father who protested that his son needed to have long hair so that he could help support the family with his earnings from a band that he played with. The prinicipal suggested getting a crew cut and wearing a wig for performances.

Skinner earned the disdain of the long-haired students that day and the band later adopted the name Lynyrd Skynyrd to remind them of their hardscrabble start in rock — and as a backhanded tribute to Mr. Skinner himself.

“I just went along with the flow. There was not a much I could do about it,” Skinner would say in an interview with Reuters decades later.

The band went on to achieve worldwide fame with such southern rock anthems as “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Freebird.” Years later, Skinner maintained that the rumor that he got the future rockers kicked out of school was totally false, arguing that as a mere gym teacher, he hardly had the authority to have students expelled.

He later became friendly with a few members of the troupe, including singer Ronnie Van Zant, who was among those killed when the band’s plane crashed in 1977. Following the tragic crash that killed several original band members and others on board, Lynyrd Skynyrd went on hiatus for a decade. The band regrouped with a partially new lineup in 1987.

The band was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 20 years later.

“I don’t like to consider myself an evil guy and I don’t think I was,” Skinner said in a 1996.

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s latest release is due out Sept. 29, despite the deaths of founding member and keyboardist Billy Posell and bassist Ean Evans earlier this year.

The LP will be the band’s first since 2003.