A twinkle in his eye and a sly grin on his face, Jody Skelton, 69, still has the same demeanor that made him one of the best point guards to hail from Pensacola. His soft spoken and humble disposition only seconds what his former teammates say about him. Generosity throughout his life in giving back to his home city mirrors his style of play on the basketball court. He utilized lessons he learned from the game in his career in civic duty working for the City of Pensacola.
Jody is a third generation son of the City of Five Flags. The only child of Maxine and Joe Skelton, his father was a life-long employee of the L & N Railroad. Jody said he grew up on the beaches and water of Santa Rosa Island, where he became an avid angler of speckled trout and redfish. When he started playing little league, he encountered one of the major influences of his early life, coach Bill Bond. Jody’s father, Joe, showed him what it meant to work hard and be responsible, but Bond showed Jody what it meant to be a good team member and how to play hard. This led to Pensacola High School, where he began to play basketball for the next big influence in his life, coach Marvin Beck.
Beck ended up coaching Jody five of his next eight years. Jody’s junior year at PHS, in 1964, saw him lead the “marvelous midgets,” as they were known, to the Florida High School State Championship. Although they lost in the state quarterfinals his senior year, he was selected All-State, and the Tigers won 43 straight games. The 5-foot-8 point guard chose to play at Pensacola Junior College for the next two years. At this point, Jody decided to stay close to home and play for Beck at the University of West Florida, which started an intercollegiate basketball program in 1967 and hired Beck as their first head coach. Although Jody had many scholarship offers from schools throughout the south, he decided to become the first scholarship athlete at UWF. He recalled the team’s first win over Valdosta State College in that inaugural season in which the Argonauts defeated a talented Blazer squad at Valdosta. “We celebrated that night, and we weren’t very good in the next night’s game,” Jody said with a chuckle. He was a pivotal cog of UWF’s first two basketball teams. “Jody was the brains of the team,” said former teammate Bob Stinett, UWF Hall of Fame and former men’s basketball head coach. “He sacrificed individual stats for the good of the team.” Those first two teams saw the Argos Basketball Team win 37 games and set scoring records that are still in place today.
Following graduation from UWF, Jody went into coaching at the high school and junior college levels. In 1972, realizing coaching might not be for him, he accepted a job with the City of Pensacola Parks and Recreation Department, where he worked with Red Vickery, a leader in the park and recreation field. Upon Vickery’s retirement, Jody became director in 2001. He held this position until he retired in 2006. He said that the same skills and discipline that allowed him to successfully direct a basketball team aided him while working for the City of Pensacola.
He met his future wife, Lori, during his coaching career when she worked the ticket counter at Pensacola Junior College. They have two children: daughter Dionne, an attorney, and son Charlie, a Pensacola firefighter. They are also the proud grandparents of Dionne’s two sons, Keaton, 7, and Cortland, 4. When not out in his boat chasing reds and specks, Jody can be found in the stands at the UWF Fieldhouse watching the Argos. In 2014, Jody was inducted into the University of West Florida Hall of Fame.
Jody has been part of the Pensacola scene his whole life; from representing local schools on the hardwood to serving his city for 35 years, he embodies what it means to be a legend of the game. Even in these last 10 years of retirement, he stays active with different groups. The lessons he learned from basketball – goal setting, being a team player, and commitment to achievement – prepared him for his professional career. “Without the influence of someone like coach Beck, I don’t believe I could have attained the success I have experienced in my athletic and professional careers,” Jody said.
Happy to Stay Home
