When Jack Kent Cooke decided in the early 1990s that the time had come to move his beloved Redskins out of creaky and undersized RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., he exuded confidence that burgundy-and-gold-clad fans would get to enjoy games at a sparkling new stadium fairly quickly.
Things didn’t go quite as planned.
Although Cooke had a lifelong knack for sales (he was an instant success as a 14-year-old, door-to-door encyclopedia salesman), he found it difficult to convince state and local officials in the D.C. area to play ball.
Negotiations to build a new stadium in D.C. fell apart amid allegations that Cooke had been condescending and sexist in his interactions with Sharon Pratt Kelly, the city’s first female mayor. A subsequent handshake deal with then-Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder (D), to build a stadium in Alexandria, fell apart when residents there rose up in opposition. Then came talk of moving to a parcel near Laurel Park racetrack, but that fizzled when it quickly become obvious that the roads around the track couldn’t handle game-day traffic.
