Harold Sebring

Harold Leon Sebring (March 9, 1898 – July 26, 1968), nicknamed Tom Sebring, was a Florida Supreme Court justice, and an American judge at one of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials of German war criminals after World War II. Sebring was a native of Kansas and an alumnus of Kansas State Agricultural College. While Sebring attended law school at the University of Florida, he also served as the head coach of the Florida Gators football team that represented the university.

Early life Sebring was born in Olathe, Kansas in 1898, the son of John Thomas Sebring and Anna Lee Hayden Sebring. He graduated from Gardner High School in Gardner, Kansas in 1916, along with his brother, Leonard Sebring.

World War I Sebring spent 22 months overseas and thirteen months in combat during World War I, and was twice decorated by the U.S. Army with the Silver Star for exceptional bravery under enemy fire, and also received the Croix de Guerre and Corde de Fourragere from the French government. Sebring was honorably discharged from the Army as a sergeant in 1919.

College

After returning to the United States, he studied architecture, engineering and business at Kansas State Agricultural College (now known as Kansas State University) in Manhattan, Kansas, Sebring received a Bachelor of Science degree in commerce from Kansas State in 1923. Van Fleet joined the faculty at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida in 1921, and also became an assistant coach for the Florida Gators football team. Sebring accepted the coaching position and also enrolled in the University of Florida College of Law as a student. When the Army transferred Van Fleet to a new posting in the Panama Canal Zone after the 1924 season, he recommended Sebring as his replacement, after serving as Van Fleet's chief scout in 1924. Sebring quickly proved himself to be a creative football coach and innovator; his 1925 Gators finished with an 8–2 record, the best record in school history to that time. Florida went 7–3 in 1927, Sebring's third and final season, and was tapped into Florida Blue Key leadership society.

Lawyer and judge After receiving his law degree, Sebring practiced law in Miami and Jacksonville, Florida. Sebring was credited with dramatically expanding the student body and faculty, and deepening the quality and diversity of the college's academic courses. Sebring's retirement from Stetson was planned for September 1, 1968, but he died unexpectedly five weeks earlier. In 1976, Stetson named a law school courtroom in his memory; and, in 2004, the college named him as one of the first seventeen members of its hall of fame.

Family and death Sebring was married to Elise Bishop and had one child, son Harold, Jr. Sebring's grandson, Harold, III, leads a Tampa law firm, Sebring Law. Sebring died on July 26, 1968, in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Head coaching record Football