Dale Skinner was born on the Fourth of July in 1939, and he was a firecracker – or at least a never-ending sparkler — as a coach and principal and any other job he held in the field of education for 51 years.
“Man, he was the best principal Menard ever had,” Menard grad Al Mathews said of a man whose flame finally extinguished on December 15th. During one stretch in his time at Menard, Skinner was not only the principal but the athletics director and the head coach for boys and girls basketball.
Bishop Sam Jacobs hired him to take over as Menard’s principal in June of 1999. He was nearly 60 when he took the job. He had retired as principal at Pleasant Hill in 1996 and the longtime successful basketball coach had been working at the time as a juvenile officer for the Sabine Parish Sheriff’s Office.
Even though Skinner wasn’t a Catholic, Bishop Jacobs lured him back into the field of education, and it was like putting a fish back into the water. Jacobs knew enough about Skinner, too, to know he could probably help revive the school, which had morale and discipline problems, and enrollment had shrunk to 385.
Along with hiring Skinner as principal, Menard added the position of president and filled the position with its beloved longtime chemistry teacher, Sister C.C. Vanderlick. The Skinner-Vanderlick leadership team helped Menard increase its enrollment to 550 in the six years Skinner was principal.
In February of ’05, the Diocese did not renew Skinner’s contract as principal, citing a policy of having only Catholics as principals of schools in the Diocese. Recently installed Bishop Ronald Herzog wanted to return to that old policy that Jacobs broke from to hire Skinner, a Baptist.
The man was controversial. But then again, a lot of successful people are “controversial.” Who among America’s Founding Fathers wasn’t controversial? Or the giants of biblical history such as Moses, King David, John the Baptist and even Jesus?
Skinner reminded me some of Norman Dale, the fictional coach from the movie “Hoosiers.” Or the real legendary Hoosiers coach Boby Knight. Both were undeterred by pressure from players’ parents or the press or alumni or wealthy fans.
But they achieved extraordinary success. Skinner coached Florien to a state basketball title in 1969 in only his second season as the head coach, and it was the school’s first state title since 1954.
Rapides hired him in 1970, and he coached the Mustangs, or the “Shetland Ponies,” as they were nicknamed, to the Class A finals in his first year at the school. That team went 29-5 without a starter over 6-foot-2. A Northwestern State grad, Skinner coached the team to within one point of Franklinton in the finals.
His calling card could’ve been “Have Basketball, Will Travel,” as he never settled down for any length of time at one school. He coached at St. Mary’s, Merryville, Athens, Many and DeRidder.
Ah, yes, DeRidder. That’s where he won three straight District 4-4AAAA Coach of the Year honors in 1976, ’77 and ’78, with the help of a fellow named Mike Sanders, a Vidalia native who would go on to stardom at UCLA and in the NBA for 11 seasons with four different teams. In 1977, Skinner’s DeRidder team became the first AAAA school to get 40 victories in a season, finishing 41-1 with a loss in the finals to Archbishop Rummel. In that three-year period, the Dragons went 110-17.
Among other highlights of his administrative career in three different parishes, Skinner was principal at Natchitoches Central for four years and for his professional swan song, he served six years as superintendent of Natchitoches Parish Schools.
The late Rick Huckabay, who credited Skinner with molding him as a successful coach at the high school and college level, and who served as Skinner’s assistant principal at Menard, captured Skinner’s essence in a 1977 interview.
“He expects perfection,” Huckabay said. “He teaches that defense is equally important with offense. Dale makes his players fear him. They are terrified of making a mistake, but at the same time he’s a companion to them and treats everyone the same.”
The road to Skinner’s idea of “perfection” at whatever job he held might have been uncomfortable at times, but he had a knack for making that ride memorable at each turn.
