James ‘Skip’ Wilson, legendary baseball coach at Temple and longtime high school teacher, has died at 92

James “Skip” Wilson, 92, of Philadelphia, a baseball lifer, the all-time winningest coach in any sport at Temple University, a longtime teacher at Roxborough High School, and an inspirational mentor to many, died Tuesday, July 26, of complications from a stroke at Jefferson Abington Hospital.

Mr. Wilson was a star football, basketball, and baseball player as a young man in the 1940s, earning a basketball scholarship to Georgetown University and playing minor-league baseball for the Philadelphia Athletics. But it was with the Temple baseball team that he etched his name in both the history books and hearts of his players, fellow coaches, fans, and legion of admirers.

Beginning in 1960, Mr. Wilson coached the Owls for 46 seasons, leading them to two appearances in the College World Series, 12 berths in the NCAA tournament, and 12 conference championships. His final record was 1,034 victories, 824 losses, and 27 ties, and more than 100 of his players went on to professional baseball careers, four in the major leagues.

“He was not only one of the greatest coaches in Temple history but in collegiate baseball,” Arthur Johnson, Temple’s vice president and director of athletics, said in a tribute. “His legacy, however, will be in the lives he touched while leading the program.”

Indeed, Mr. Wilson was known as much by those close to him for his mentoring off the diamond as for his managing on it.

“Skip was always big on trying to become a better person,” Temple third baseman Dan Brady told the Temple News when Mr. Wilson retired from coaching in 2005. Former Temple player and major leaguer Joe Kerrigan told The Inquirer in 2005: “Skip probably touched more lives than anyone in the university’s history.”

John McArdle, former Temple assistant coach, said in 2005: “He’d always tell you to take care of your family first, put your priorities in order.” In 2007, Mr. Wilson told The Inquirer: “I would say if you don’t have fun while playing, why play? It’s the same with coaching. I had fun teaching the boys.”

Among the hundreds of online tributes posted this week for Mr. Wilson were: “A managerial genius, a leader of men, an educator of the first degree and someone I am proud to call a friend. The close knit Temple baseball family lost its father today.” Another man said: “Without Skip, the family I now have would not be, and my life would have went in a totally different direction.”

His legacy was also highlighted during the Phillies’ TV broadcast on Wednesday.

Mr. Wilson was inducted into the Temple Athletics Hall of Fame in 1981, the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1987, and the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame in 1994. The school retired his No. 6 uniform and named the baseball field at its Ambler campus Skip Wilson Field in 2006. To Mr. Wilson’s dismay, Temple discontinued its baseball program in 2014.

Mr. Wilson was born in Philadelphia on Oct. 8, 1929. He grew up in Germantown, graduated from St. John’s High School in 1948, and went to Georgetown for a few semesters, but he dropped out to play minor-league baseball for a few seasons. He spent two years in the Army and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1958 and a master’s degree in health and physical education in 1961, both from Temple.

He coached Temple’s freshman basketball team for one season, was an assistant baseball coach for one season, and became head baseball coach in 1960. He also taught physical education and driver training at Roxborough High School for 34 years, retiring in 1992.

He married Joanne Takach, and they had daughters Lizanne, Jennifer, and Stephanie, and son Gregory. After a divorce, he married Marion Patterson, and they had daughter Rhetta. They divorced later, and he married Suzanne O’Donnell in 1992.

Mr. Wilson liked to pal around with his children and grandchildren, enlisted his grandsons to be batboys at Temple, and hosted baseball clinics for disadvantaged youngsters. “I think anything that keeps kids interested in sports fights drugs,” he told The Inquirer in 1988.

He followed the Phillies and Eagles closely, reviewed a baseball book for The Inquirer in 1984, and bragged that he never retired because he never really worked.

Regarding his time as Temple baseball coach, he told The Inquirer in 2005: “It was easy money. Not much, but it was easy.” He said in 2007 that he enjoyed the many phone calls he received over the years from former players and students. Some were special.

“There is no call I like more,” he said, “than when they’ll call saying [college] was the best four years of their life.”

His daughter Jennifer Springs said: “He loved those men. He always said, ‘I’m a teacher of life.’”

In addition to his wife, children, and former wives, Mr. Wilson is survived by 12 grandchildren and other relatives. Two brothers and a sister died earlier.

Services are to be held later.