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Longtime Florida high school football head coach Eddie Shannon passes away at 104

Lawrence Andrew Fernandezby: Lawrence Fernandez04/09/26lawandfern

The Florida high school football community mourns the death of former Lincoln and Manatee head coach Eddie Shannon, who passed away at 104. He started his coaching career at Lakeland in 1954 and went home to coach the Lincoln Trojans.

At one point during his time with the Trojans, the team lost only twice in seven years. It was here that he coached offensive lineman Henry Lawrence, a three-time Super Bowl winner with the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders. Shannon also coached Raymond Bellamy, the first African-American athlete to sign a scholarship at the University of Miami, at Lincoln.

After his time at Lincoln, he took over the Manatee football program and became Manatee County’s Distinguished Citizen in 2004. His achievements over a 34-year career earned him an induction into the Florida High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame in 2012. Beyond sports, he also helped promote the integration process at Manatee during the Civil Rights Era.

Before his Florida high school football coaching career, the World War II veteran became the first paid athletic trainer at Florida A&M University. There, he trained Althea Gibson, who eventually became a French Open, Wimbledon, and U.S. Open women’s singles champion.

Eddie Shannon also became a torchbearer during the 1996 Summer Olympics when the torch passed through Palmetto. As a war veteran, the key figure in the 2010 documentary “Through the Tunnel” received a commemorative plaque for his service from President Joe Biden when he turned 100.

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