Former Seattle Seahawks owner Ken Behring died on Tuesday at the age of 91.
“We are saddened by the loss of former Seahawks owner Ken Behring,” the Seahawks said in a statement. “We send our heartfelt condolences to Mr. Behring’s family and friends.”
Behring bought the Seahawks from department store magnate John Nordstrom for $80 million in 1988 and sold the team to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen for $200 million in 1997. Behring’s tenure as owner may be best remembered for an ill-fated attempt to move the Seahawks to Los Angeles shortly after the Raiders and Rams moved out in 1995.
Born in 1928, Behring grew up in a poor family in Wisconsin and briefly played college football for the Badgers but dropped out of college after an injury and became a car salesman. He soon had his own used car business, and when he was 28 he started up a construction company. By his 30s he was a major real estate developer.
Behring was also a major donor to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, although his donations were sometimes criticized as having too many strings attached, and the museum was criticized for accepting his donations of threatened animals that he had personally hunted. One of the animals he killed on an overseas hunting trip was a sheep considered among the most endangered species in the world.
Behring was the founder of the Wheelchair Foundation, which seeks to provide a wheelchair to everyone in the world who needs one but cannot afford one.
