Tell me about Jack Kent Cooke

Great Business man.............

Good owner.................

shitty husband.................


even a worse father...........

He was a bigget.
if your going to name call, at least spell it right:(

I'm currently in the middle of writing a 2,000 word paper for my Entrepreneurial class and as you may have already guessed my paper is on the late great Jack Kent Cooke (was originally going to write about Snyder but I don't think he qualifies as historical).

However I only really know limited amounts about his involvement with the Redskins. If anyone could provide any factoids on his dealings with the other teams he owned as well as the businesses he started before becoming an owner then that would be much appreciated.

The actual question reads as follows:
'Growing a business is a difficult challenge'. With reference to a historical entrepreneur of your choice, explore and explain the key factors behind their business growth and success.

Information can include anything from his personallity, style of management, factoids about his old business, how he balanced raising a family, and virtually anything else you may know.

Can infamous count as historical?

He was a bigget.

You are an illiterate. :D

You are an illiterate. :D

hey that rhymes!

Anyhow, I think maybe he's confusing JKC with GPM

hey that rhymes!

Anyhow, I think maybe he's confusing JKC with GPM

Definitely. Marshall was the owner who tried to keep the team "white" as long as possible.

Of course, we can't know if he personally was racist or was trying to sell the team to his Southern fanbase as effectively as possible. Marshall WAS the best salesman in pro sports, he had circus acts elephants for halftime shows, started the marching band we still have, did special military days at the game (which happened to fall on Pearl Harbor Day in '41) and was the ultimate businessman in football. Dan Snyder fits his mold of success well, although it's scaled down A LOT from George.

With the Redskins being the southern-most team and had a large fanbase in VA, NC and the south, perhaps he was trying to give them what they wanted or was being pressured by them...who knows. I'm not giving him a pass, I'm glad he finally realized that his promise to buy the BEST players and put he best team he could on the field could not be achieved without black athletes.

Anyways, it wasn't Jack Kent Cooke.

Definitely. Marshall was the owner who tried to keep the team "white" as long as possible.

Of course, we can't know if he personally was racist or was trying to sell the team to his Southern fanbase as effectively as possible. Marshall WAS the best salesman in pro sports, he had circus acts elephants for halftime shows, started the marching band we still have, did special military days at the game (which happened to fall on Pearl Harbor Day in '41) and was the ultimate businessman in football. Dan Snyder fits his mold of success well, although it's scaled down A LOT from George.

With the Redskins being the southern-most team and had a large fanbase in VA, NC and the south, perhaps he was trying to give them what they wanted or was being pressured by them...who knows. I'm not giving him a pass, I'm glad he finally realized that his promise to buy the BEST players and put he best team he could on the field could not be achieved without black athletes.

Anyways, it wasn't Jack Kent Cooke.


I think it was a little from column A and a little from column B.

Dirtbag:

JKC was indeed a character. He owned/built the Fabulous Forum in LA and owned the LA Kings and the LA Lakers for a time. He owned radio, TV and newspapers too. He once owned a minor league baseball team and tried to buy a major league baseball team and move it to Toronto in the late 50s/early 60s as I recall.


Early on as Skins' owner he stayed in LA and allowed Edward Bennett Williams (Washington lawyer of no small reputation) to run the Skins. Williams owned a small part of the team (7% I think). Then Cooke severed his LA ties - - proximal to one of his several divorces - - and moved east to an estate in Upperville/Middleburg VA. That is when he bought out Williams and became the guiding force of the Redskins and built the team by spending more money on the Skins than any other owner of the 1980s spent on their teams -- except perhaps for Eddie deBartolo in SF. [BTW, Edward Bennett Williams then purchased the Baltimore Orioles and ran that team for a while...]


If you are doing a paper on JKC, leave room for a section on how he thought he might outsmart the Feds and the IRS with regard to his estate taxes and created an arcane will that all but guaranteed that his son could not own the team. That is how the team was up for sale in the late 90s - first to the Millstein Bros and subsequently to Danny Boy - all because JKC's intracate will made it such that the estate had to sell the team to pay the estate taxes that JKC thought he was going to avoid.


As I understand it, the key to his tax machinations was that the Chrysler Bldg in NYC - - which he also owned - - was supposed to be valuable enough to sell quickly and pay all the estate tax that might be due. Unfortunately, the Chrysler Bldg wasn't worth more than about 60% of what the estate needed to raise to pay the estate tax - - even with all of is hedges and shelters and foundations and all that stuff. And that is where the house of cards began to fall...


Just a guess, but Smootsmack should have info for you on this subject too...


Good luck.

not to mentioned he fought with the district of columbia on the stadium location with RFK and formely (jack kent cooke stadium) now FEDEX cause of the potomac river and the residents there.. yeah JKC was a great owner who let the football people he hired joe gibbs ,bobby bethard do their jobs but with his support and his checkbook and the redskins record books with their SB runs speaks for itself..so from the lakers to the chysler building to estate and the redskins...you have jack kent cooke..

you pretty much covered it all right there..

Passed away 12 years ago today

Anyone know what John Cooke is up to these days??? What ever happened to him? I heard he owns a winery somewhere in VA.