John Kent Cooke

[skinsfan69]

Originally Posted by scowan

I never did understand why John Cooke did not inherit the team from his Dad? Estate taxes? Did his dad not love him? What happened!

Basically his own dad screwed him. From what I have heard from some sources around town is that the Redskins were not John's passion and his dad saw that. John's passion is wine and sailing, not the Redskins. The foundation was to take the highest bid and accept John's bid only if it was in the neighborhood as the other bids. John was left somewhere around 40-50 million, not anywhere near enough to buy the team. He was trying to take a loan out from Nations Bank but it fell through cause the price had gone through the roof. He did get a few more million when the team sold.

When the team sold all that $ built the JKC foundation which gives $ for kids to go to college. John is still fighting with the people in the foundation about how the $ is distributed. From what I have heard it's a real mess to this day. All these people ( the foundation) all worked for Jack Kent Cooke, and a few actually worked for the Redskins. One was a Redskins accountant and one was a lawyer. They all got a piece when the team sold.

I wish he had kept the team. John was running the team anyway when his dad died and we would have had stability and a GM. We were right on track in 99 and Snyder came in a messed everything up.

[70Chip]

Mr Cooke's will is now a staple of law classes around the country. You can read it here along with all the various codiciles he added as various people around him fell in and out of favor:

WashingtonPost.com: Jack Kent Cooke's Will: Index Page