Basketball history

Roy Skinner, the Vanderbilt University coach who recruited the first black athlete to play varsity basketball in the Southeastern Conference and who led the Commodores to more victories than any other coach, died Monday in Nashville. He was 80.The cause was respiratory failure, Mr. Skinner’s daughter Chris said. When Vanderbilt’s chancellor, Alexander Heard, encouraged Mr. Skinner to recruit black players in the mid-1960s, Mr. Skinner immediately began to search for suitable players and eventually recruited Perry Wallace, a high school star in Nashville.


“I don’t think Skinner was looking to make history, but he was aware of it,” said Andrew Maraniss, a Vanderbilt alumnus who is writing a biography of Mr. Wallace. “I think the most important thing to Skinner would be that Wallace was a great player, and also a great student, a valedictorian.”

Mr. Wallace, 63, said that although Mr. Skinner rarely if ever addressed the racial hostility Mr. Wallace faced, he was a calming influence during difficult times. “The test is not, did he stand up to hostile crowds?” Mr. Wallace said. “His basic manner and his approach and the fact that he was sincere in trying to help me was most important to me.”

Mr. Skinner later said that recruiting black athletes from the North was difficult because black students “were skeptical going to the South.” He also said that he received petitions from alumni against recruiting blacks. “I only took that with a grain of salt,” he said in a 2007 article on the Vanderbilt Commodores’ Web site. “There wasn’t anything they could do about that.”

Roy Gene Skinner was born in Paducah, Ky., on Apr. 17, 1930. He graduated from Presbyterian College in South Carolina in 1952, and he played point guard throughout his high school and college years. Mr. Skinner took his first job coaching basketball for Paducah Junior College in 1955. In 1957, he became an assistant coach at Vanderbilt, and in 1958 he became the acting head coach. He became the head coach in 1960 and held the position until 1977. He won 278 games during his career and was named the SEC’s coach of the year four times.


Mr. Skinner is survived by his second wife, Nathleene Skinner; five children from his first marriage, Kim Skinner and Chris Skinner, both of Dothan, Ala., Joe Skinner of Greenville, S.C., Tapp Skinner of Greer, S.C., and Dea Skinner Johnson of Anderson, S.C.; and eight grandchildren.

October 30, 2010: Roy Skinner, Who Recruited First Black Basketball Player in SEC, Dies at 80. By DANIEL E. SLOTNIK. NYT