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Morgan Freeman

Source: Getty Images / Morgan Freeman

Joe Clark, the bat-carrying New Jersey principal who inspired the 1989 movie Lean On Me has died at the age of 82.

Clark became famous for taking over the crime-ridden Eastside High School, expelling hundreds of student and walking the halls with a baseball bat and a bullhorn.

He was later offered a White House job by President Ronald Reagan and portrayed by Morgan Freeman in Lean On Me.

Clark died Tuesday at his home in Gainesville, Florida after a long battle with illness.