Wheelock "Whee" Whitney Jr. (July 30, 1926 – May 20, 2016) was an American businessman, educator, sports team executive and owner, philanthropist, and politician.

Early life and education

Whitney attended Phillips Andover and

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

with

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

. He and Bush were both members of Delta Kappa Epsilon at Yale. Whitney was a successful

investment bank Investment is the dedication of money to purchase of an asset to attain an increase in value over a period of time. Investment requires a sacrifice of some present asset, such as time, money, or effort. In finance, the purpose of investing is ...

er from 1957 until 1972, when he left the industry to teach at the Carlson School of Business at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

. Whitney was the 1964 Republican nominee for

U.S. Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and powe ...

from Minnesota, losing to

Eugene McCarthy Eugene Joseph McCarthy (March 29, 1916December 10, 2005) was an American politician, writer, and academic from Minnesota. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971. ...

, and the Republican nominee for

governor of Minnesota The governor of Minnesota is the head of government of the U.S. state of Minnesota, leading the state's executive branch. Forty people have been governor of Minnesota, though historically there were also three governors of Minnesota Territory. ...

in 1982, losing to

Rudy Perpich Rudolph George Perpich Sr. (June 27, 1928 September 21, 1995) was an American politician and the longest-serving governor of Minnesota, serving a total of just over 10 years. A member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, he served as the 34t ...

Sports executive

Whitney was involved with the Continental League, the third major baseball league, in 1959. He helped obtain the

Minnesota Twins The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central Division. The team is named after the Twin Cities area w ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

franchise for the state, and served on the team's

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

from 1961 to 1985. Whitney was also part of the successful effort to obtain a

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

franchise for the city of

Bloomington, Minnesota Bloomington is a suburban city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, on the north bank of the Minnesota River, above its confluence with the Mississippi River, south of downtown Minneapolis. As of the 2020 census, the city's population was 89,987, ma ...

. The team, the Minnesota North Stars, was founded in 1967 and played at the Met Center, which Whitney helped get built. He was also a part-

owner Ownership is the state or fact of legal possession and control over property, which may be any asset, tangible or intangible. Ownership can involve multiple rights, collectively referred to as title, which may be separated and held by different ...

and president of the

Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansion ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

team for a number of years.

Personal life

Whitney married Irene Hixon on August 21, 1948. They provided aid to

Vernon Johnson Vernon E. Johnson (August 23, 1920 – April 30, 1999) was an Episcopal priest and recovering alcoholic who devoted his life to a claimed method of alcohol intervention. Johnson's main achievements lie in the field of treatment of chemical depend ...

, who pioneered the method of using an intervention to confront alcoholics and

substance abuse Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, is the use of a drug in amounts or by methods which are harmful to the individual or others. It is a form of substance-related disorder. Differing definitions of drug abuse are used in public health, ...

rs so as to get them professional help for their addictions. They created the Johnson Institute after Johnson helped Irene Whitney through an intervention. Irene Whitney died of

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissue (biology), tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from tran ...

in 1986. In 1990 Whitney married Penny Lewis, a professional horse trainer, from whom he was divorced in 1994. In 2005, he married Chief Justice Kathleen A. Blatz, of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Whitney died on May 20, 2016.

Horse racing

Whitney was involved with the sport of thoroughbred horse racing for many years. His best-known horse was Quicken Tree, a California runner in the 1960s whose wins included the Santa Anita Handicap,

Manhattan Handicap The Manhattan Handicap is an American Thoroughbred horse race raced annually at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York. It is named for Manhattan, the principal borough of the City of New York. Currently offering a purse of $1,000,000, the Grade I Manh ...

and the Jockey Club Gold Cup.PedigreeQuery website listing
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitney, Wheelock Jr. 1926 births 2016 deaths American financiers American investment bankers American racehorse owners and breeders Minnesota Twins owners Minnesota Vikings owners Continental League contributors Major League Baseball executives National Football League team presidents University of Minnesota faculty Phillips Academy alumni Yale University alumni Minnesota Republicans Businesspeople from Portland, Maine Businesspeople from Minnesota Politicians from St. Cloud, Minnesota Whitney family Ralph Wheelock family 20th-century American businesspeople