Bill Skinner, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetBill Skinner
Date of Birth: 27-Dec-1939
Date of Death: 05-Oct-2015
Profession: athletics competitor
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Capricorn 
About Bill Skinner
- Bill Skinner (December 27, 1939 – October 5, 2015) was an American javelin thrower.
- He held the national title in 1970 and 1971 and won a silver medal at the 1971 Pan American Games.Born in Wilmington and raised in New Castle, Delaware, Skinner was trained as metalsmith and welder, as were his father and grandfather.
- In January 1957, aged 17, he quit high school and enlisted to the U.S.
- Navy; he completed his service in the spring of 1961.
- After that he played semi-professional football with the Wilmington Clippers and trained in boxing and weightlifting before changing to javelin throw.
- By March 1968 he quit his welding job to attend the University of Tennessee and graduated in industrial education.
- In 1971, his refusal to shave his mustache led to him being removed from the University of Tennessee Track Team, an infamous incident covered by Sports Illustrated.
- He continued his javelin career throwing for the New York Athletic Club.
- In 1971 he captained the U.S.
- team at the Pan American Games.
- Later that year he received an elbow injury and was stabbed while trying to stop a bar fight in Knoxville; as a result he missed the 1972 Summer Olympics.Skinner married in late 1962 and had a daughter.
- He divorced in 1970.
- The same year his younger brother, Jimmy, was killed in a car accident after returning from Vietnam.
- He remarried in 1971 and had two more daughters.
- After retiring from competitions, Skinner lived in Kentucky and worked for John Deere company.
- He was inducted into the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame in 1981 and to the Delaware Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1994.
- He was posthumously inducted into the Tennessee Athletics Hall of Fame in 2016 as part of the first class honoring male athletes.
- His likeness appears (uncredited) on the side of the original arcade version of the Konami Track & Field (video game).
- He died of pancreatic cancer aged 75.
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