Leonard Tose Leonard Hyman Tose ( March 6 , 1915 – April 15 , 2003 ) was an owner of the Philadelphia Eagles from 1969 – 1985 . He made a fortune in the trucking industry and was known for his lavish lifestyle . He eventually lost his fortune because of a gambling addiction and alcoholism . Early years . Tose ' s father , a Russian Jewish immigrant to the United States , settled outside Philadelphia and was a peddler with a pack on his back . He eventually owned 10 trucks , the beginning of the family business . Eventually , Tose Inc . owned more than 700 trucks and grossed $ 20 million a year . Tose was born in Bridgeport , Pennsylvania . Philadelphia Eagles owner . Tose , a lifelong fan of the Philadelphia Eagles , invested in the team as a member of the " Happy Hundred , " a group led by James P . Clark . Tose invested $ 3 , 000 as one of the one hundred owners to purchase the team from Alexis Thompson on January 15 , 1949 . Tose tried to buy the team with his own group of investors in 1956 , but was unable to do so . The team was bought in December 1963 by Jerry Wolman for $ 5 , 505 , 000 and Tose received more than $ 60 , 000 . He bought the team from Wolman in 1969 for $ 16 , 155 , 000 , then a record for a professional sports franchise . Tose ' s first official act was to fire head coach Joe Kuharich . He followed this by naming former Eagles receiving great Pete Retzlaff as general manager and Jerry Williams as coach . In 1976 , he , along with General Manager Jimmy Murray , lured Dick Vermeil from UCLA to coach the hapless Eagles , who had one winning season from 1962 – 1975 . Vermeil ' s 1980 team lost to Oakland in the Super Bowl . In January 1983 , Tose announced that his daughter , Susan Fletcher , the Eagles ' vice president and legal counsel , would eventually succeed him as primary owner of the Eagles . In 1985 Tose was forced to sell the Eagles to Norman Braman and Ed Leibowitz , highly successful automobile dealers from Florida , for a reported $ 65 million to pay off his more than $ 25 million in gambling debts at Atlantic City casinos . Lifestyle . A slim , suave man who was always well dressed , Mr . Tose was , by his admission , a compulsive gambler and an alcoholic with a lifestyle others called flamboyant and he called comfortable . He and the fourth of his five wives had matching Rolls - Royces . Mr . Tose flew to Eagles home games in a helicopter , was married aboard the liner Queen Elizabeth 2 and fed reporters filet mignon and shrimp cocktail . During his tenor as Eagles owner , Tose was instrumental in helping establish the first Ronald McDonald House . Together with General Manager Jimmy Murray and Eagles player Fred Hill ( whose daughter had leukemia ) , Dr . Audrey Evans and McDonald ' s regional manager Ed Rensi , a house was established for families to stay when their children received treatment for pediatric cancers . The house was financed by proceeds from sales of Shamrock Shakes throughout the Philadelphia area . After the Eagles . In 1991 , the Sands sued him for $ 1 . 23 million in gambling debts . He countersued , contending that the casino got him too drunk to know what he was doing . Eventually , the casino won . There was testimony from a cocktail waitress swearing that her job description was " to keep Mr . Tose ' s glass filled . " A monogrammed glass , courtesy of the casino , which she kept filled with top - shelf scotch . In the end , he lost it all , by his estimate more than $ 20 million at Resorts International and $ 14 million at the Sands . In 1996 , on his 81st birthday , Tose was evicted from his seven - bedroom Villanova mansion after losing the house in a U . S . Marshal ' s sale . In 1999 , he told a congressional hearing on compulsive gambling that his losses totaled between $ 40 million and $ 50 million . He spent his last years alone in a downtown hotel room after his home in Philadelphia ' s upscale Main Line district was confiscated for unpaid taxes . Mr . Tose died in his sleep in the hospice wing of St . Agnes Medical Center in Philadelphia on April 15 , 2003 . He was 88 . No cause of death was released . An obituary by Dan Dunkin captured his life : " To put Leonard Tose ' s life in football terms , he threw on every down . "