Jack Kent Cooke, a Man of Many Enterprises, Poured the Last Decades of His Life Into the Washington Redskins
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Jack Kent Cooke, a man of many enterprises, poured the last decades of his life into the Washington Redskins. His triumphant, behatted visage became iconic after the 1983 Super Bowl (and sparked a national sales run on the hat!). But as proud as he was of the team, he decided to sell it to fund his philanthropic legacy. 18 PHILANTHROPY Reprinted from the Summer 2018 issue of Philanthropy magazine (PhilMag.org) Musical Excellence and the Media Mogul Standing behind a popular force that’s boosting classical music Taiga and Aliya Ultan grew up with their and young players mother Wendy in nomadic fashion— moving 29 times during childhood, is one very driven donor and never staying in one place for more than three years. Sometimes the By Caitrin Keiper trio even lived out of their car. Wendy, a violinist, traveled from gig to gig while homeschooling her daughters In this way, Taiga’s instrument chose and encouraging them to delve into her. She eventually bought a used flute, whatever captured their imagination. and the salesman showed her the basic She surrounded them with books, art, fingering. Unable to afford lessons, she scores, recordings—“a whole world of explored playing styles on her own. In enrichment in tiny spaces,” says Taiga— the neighborhoods where her family but they had hardly any money. alighted she would sit outside and On a road trip when Taiga was seven, practice while kids gathered around to they happened upon a performance of listen. Amidst her financial instability Native American flute music. Taiga was and her lack of a settled home, “music swept away. She begged Wendy to buy gave me an outlet, a voice, and the a recording, but was surprised when her freedom to imagine myself liberated mother pulled out the necessary cash. from our difficult circumstances.” She listened to the tape over and over for Jack Kent Cooke Foundation; istockphoto.com/hidesy Cooke Kent Jack years, until it unraveled. Caitrin Keiper is editor of Philanthropy. SUMMER 2018 19 She grew more confident musically. When Taiga was 12, Wendy bartered lessons for her with Adam Kuenzel, principal flute of the Minnesota Orchestra, in return for some housecleaning. The day they met, Taiga asked Kuenzel, “When are the auditions?” She thought owned had long since fallen apart, leaving her with he was up for replacement and figured she might take only a borrowed one. Aliya, who had taught herself his spot in the symphony. the Icelandic language at age eight, used her grant Now 20, Taiga laughs at the memory. But not to travel to Iceland and forge a connection with a long after that she was indeed to become a featured prominent conservatory. performer. On radio. Broadcast nationwide. The Ultan sisters have now become music Tune in to public radio at any given moment and teachers there. And they continue the concentrated you’re likely to hear the graceful strains of classical self-instruction bred in them from an early age and music. But catch it at the right time and you may be reinforced by the Cooke scholarships. Taiga is currently startled by a tender voice discussing the piece—a child immersing herself in types of classical music she with the skills of a fine musician. This is From the Top, finds unappealing. “This process of studying what I a showcase of immensely talented pre-teen and teen don’t love relates back to the difficult yet formative music students whose performances are broadcast to an experiences that shaped me,” she says. By working to audience of more than half a million weekly listeners. understand troublesome pieces, she learns to appreciate The show name is a triple entendre: It’s music their deeper beauty. parlance for “start at the beginning.” Plus the More than 300 young musicians with gifts for performers themselves are at the very beginning of music but sometimes not much else to build on their careers. And they are selected from the very top have had their lives altered, like Taiga and Aliya, level of young players nationwide. by the partnership between the Jack Kent Cooke This cream of the crop includes performers from Foundation and From the Top. And powering it all? all economic backgrounds. Thanks to the show’s tight The wealth of a man who was very much a diamond partnership with the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, in the rough himself. players with very high gifts who come from families with very low incomes are provided with scholarships Overture of around $10,000 specifically to support intensive “My life is better than any F. Scott Fitzgerald novel you music study. ever read,” said Jack Kent Cooke with characteristic You can hear the 17-year-old with a father in immodesty. He was born in Ontario in 1912 to prison and constant shootings in his neighborhood a Polish mother and Australian father who was a who accompanied his church’s gospel choir on the traveling salesman. The family never had much money, piano. His Cooke Young Artist Award allowed him and Jack had to forgo college to help take care of to receive formal training and become a successful his mother and three younger siblings. He vowed to composer and music director. Or there is the 11-year- become a millionaire. And by 31, he was. old girl who lost access to her piano when her mother Seven years earlier, as a penniless newlywed had to flee to a domestic-violence shelter. Her award salesman himself, he talked his way, through sheer enabled her to buy a new instrument and keep it in the persistence and charm, into managing a radio shelter, where she played for other residents. station. (“When you’re alone in a room with Jack, he In 2014, Taiga and her sister Aliya, a cellist, outnumbers you,” a colleague later put it.) In short were both selected for the show, and for Cooke order Cooke shook up the programming, turned scholarships. As many winners do, Taiga bought around the profits, and found himself at the helm of herself an instrument with the award. The flute she an expanding network of stations. Years of schlepping to every nook and cranny of Canada gave him a better sense of what ordinary people wanted to hear on the Music gave me an outlet, a voice, and radio than any received wisdom, and he often camped the freedom to imagine myself liberated out at his stations to teach and enforce his vision. He soon went into business for himself with his own from our difficult circumstances. broadcasting and publishing empire. 20 PHILANTHROPY Taiga Ultan’s experience on From the Top encouraged her to “take responsibility” for her opportunities to reach people through music. Now a teacher, she opens her students’ horizons in turn, connecting with them through an art that transcends class, nationality, language, and other barriers. In 1951 he bought and revolutionized his first sports team, Toronto’s Triple-A baseball club, which he pulled from the bottom to the top of the International League in just three years. His dream was to bring major-league baseball to Toronto, but he was unable to cut through the red tape and forbidding ownership networks. Meanwhile, Canada was becoming too small a pond for his business aims. Its southern neighbor beckoned. When Cooke moved to the U.S. in 1960 he He struck up a friendship with cable pioneer and was, as a non-citizen, unable to hold a broadcasting eventual philanthropist Bill Daniels and got in on the license. That didn’t stop him. By a special act of forefront of the cable-television boom. He also started Congress “for the relief of Jack Kent Cooke” he snatching up sports teams—the Los Angeles Lakers bypassed the five-year waiting period and was (basketball), Los Angeles Kings (hockey), a soccer naturalized immediately—the only new American franchise, and the Washington Redskins (football). From the Top ever with this distinction. He built one of the first large modern stadiums in SUMMER 2018 21 A young Jack Kent Cooke (right) was offered a hockey scholarship to the University of Michigan but had to turn it down to support his family through the Depression. He made it up to himself later by buying several sports teams and sending thousands of hard- working students in need to college. legendary—the $42 million divorce settlement was logged in the Guinness America paid for with private rather Book of World Records as the largest than local government funds (L.A.’s in history. At that point, his love life Forum), organized the first professional became chaotic—he went on to be soccer championship in the U.S., bred married four more times to three more racing horses, and arranged the first women, and became estranged from closed-circuit boxing telecasts, including various family members. I was watching my Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier’s “Fight As an employer and public figure, of the Century.” He also bought the though, Cooke was extravagantly audience literally die Chrysler Building in New York City. generous and an excellent judge of off. So what better His intense devotion to his business ability. He sold his cable company for ventures came at a cost: in 1976 his wife $646 million in 1981 (another entry way to cultivate new of four decades left him, suggesting in the record books, as the largest he had abandoned her emotionally company-purchase in broadcasting). audiences than to give and otherwise long before. Cooke He then focused his energies on the the arena to budding often said the failure of this marriage Redskins, investing heavily in talent and was the biggest regret of his life.