*Morgan Freeman famously played New Jersey educator Joe Clark, the high school principal who inspired the 1989 movie “Lean on Me.”
Clark died Tuesday after a “long battle with illness,” his family said in a statement.
On Wednesday, Freeman paid tribute to Clark, calling him the “best of the best.”
“Joe was a father figure to school kids,” Freeman tells PEOPLE. “He was the best of the best in terms of education.”
We previously reported, Clark, the baseball bat and bullhorn-wielding principal of Eastside High School in Paterson, NJ, in the 1980s, died Tuesday at his home in Gainesville, Florida at age 82.
Clark demanded excellence and obedience through an autocratic approach. He was known for wielding a baseball bat and a bullhorn while patrolling the hallways of the high school on Park Ave.
“Roaming the hallways with a bullhorn and a baseball bat, Clark’s unorthodox methods won him both admirers and critics nationwide,” his family’s statement said. “Steadfast in his approach, Clark explained that the bat was not a weapon but a symbol of choice: a student could either strike out or hit a home run.”
Clark’s exploits were also covered in the national media. He received praise from President Ronald Reagan for his tough approach. However, he did not receive much love from parents, whose kids he expelled (Clark threw out 300 students in his first year, 1982) or the school board, whose authority he undermined. His battle with parents was highlighted in the film “Lean on Me.”
“I don’t just categorically extirpate young people out of school, but I am categorically emphatic that we cannot any longer condone hooliganism, aberrant behavior, deviant behavior in those schools,” explained Clark in a CNN interview. “I’m convinced that young people, the vast majority, deserve the right to an environment that’s conducive to learning.”
Clark’s wife Gloria, who he met at Eastside High School, died last year. Clark left behind his children Joetta, Hazel, and JJ, and grandchildren, Talitha, Jorell, and Hazel.
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