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'John C. York II' (born 1950 in Muskogee, Oklahoma) is the co-owner of the San Francisco 49ers, along with wife Denise DeBartolo York.
York attended the University of Notre Dame, studying pre-medicine. While in college, he met his wife, who was attending the neighboring St. Mary's College of Indiana. He earned his medical degree from Loyola University and did residency training at Vanderbilt University. He has become a renowned cancer pathologist and often lectures on his work at elite universities.
In 1982, York founded DeYor Laboratories, a small research company that has eventually grown to become a corporation of over 500 employees. It has been absorbed into his wife's company, The DeBartolo Corporation, of which York is executive vice president.

Contents

Early ownership of the 49ers (1998-2002)

The downfall of the team (2002-2005)

The turnaround (2005-2007)

Early ownership of the 49ers (1998-2002)

In 1998, the current owner of the 49ers, Eddie Debartolo Jr, was prosecuted for being involved in an illegal casino venture among other troubles. His past associations with known mafia members came to light and put more pressure on the investigation. He ceded control of the team to his sister and brother in law, Denise and John, who were acting owners during those seasons while he was under suspicion. Eddie made a plea bargain and was largely forced out of ownership of the team by league owners after the '99-'00 season following a series of lawsuits. Contrary to the publicity of the entire event, the team was not simply transferred after the '99 season but bought by his sister Denise. The team owned no stadium and leased Candlestick Park from the city and was sold to Denise for something a little under $300,000,000, a bargain for an NFL franchise. However, the low sale amount also kept the team within the family and without a stadium it severely depressed the team's value. The sale included family company stock, real estate ventures, and a large up front payment that was followed by several other 30M-50M payments over the course of the next few years. A lot of the profits from running the team also went into this transaction.
While his wife was more of the reason for owning the team, John has always been the face as the owner of the 49ers. The very early ownership of Dr.York was largely unpopular in San Francisco. It started with his early proclamation to run the team 'more like a business'. The previous owner was well known to spending crazy. His front office kept very little if any organized records of expenses and York immediately shook it up with plenty of internal auditing. In fact, it was Eddie's loose financial methods that led to an under the table cash payment to a retired pro bowl TE for the club that resulted in NFL penalties that later cost the 49ers their 3rd round draft pick. The auditing and book keeping however was a complete reversal of the last 20 years of the team ownership and immediately drew caution that York was a penny pincher. This led to several known early incidents:

★ Citing overspending on bottled water, he had all of the bottled water in team facilities locked in an equipment cage.

★ He did not purchase commemorative belt buckles to celebrate the team's 2002 NFC West title, a team tradition since Bill Walsh did it in the 1981 season.

★ He placed a front office secretary in charge of office supplies and keeping track of costs on items from pads of paper to copier ink.

★ He asked the front office to record mailing and shipping costs and to stop sending out items for players. This caused one team veteran to complain to the press.

★ As part of many renovation to team facilities, he demolished a room previously devoted to local media during media heavy days. They were moved out into a temporary trailer on team facilities that York chose not to include heating or air conditioning due to its infrequency of use for a short time.
With the movement of writers out into a construction trailer more or less the media was far from kind to John. Gripes from players from everything from bottled water to postage stamps only got more coverage as writers were now convinced that's how he would run things. Most of this was one sided and rarely followed up on. He found out that players hated the water in team facilities and some even preferred to go home to shower after practices. So he invested in a large, industrial strength water treatment device for the building at a much bigger personal expense than some bottled water. Also, while the water was caged up, players only had to ask to get a bottle during that time and later the water was removed from the cages entirely. The belt buckles were never ordered because even team alumni he talked to admitted theirs were in shoeboxes somewhere or in the back of a drawer and current players acted indifferent. Only a few players who held over the 90s complained about not getting them and they weren't memorabilia you can order just 7 of. Also, the media facility was later built back onto the team facilities after renovations and expanded.
A large source of the initial rancor can be found in the team's record at the time. In '99 while he was not yet full owner and performing his book keeping in Eddie's absence and then in '00, the team won only 4 and then 6 games respectively. This broke the team's streak of over 10 wins per year going back to 1983 and fans connected the losses to Eddie's absence emotionally. When John inherited the control of the team the club was starting a long period of "Salary Cap Hell" as it has been referred to by fans. The team had extravagant amounts of 'dead money' eating up cap space which was unavoidable due to the many large bonuses and mistakes made by the teams former President Carmen Policy and GM Dwight Clark in 1996-1997. Interestingly, both executives fled to get new jobs with the expansion return of the Cleveland Browns shortly before the financial disaster began. This Salary Cap Hell kept the team short of money to keep its players when they reached free agency, forced the release of veterans including team all-pro and future Hall of Famer WR Jerry Rice, and forced the team to rely on less talent. The loss of young stars and the release and loss of so many talented players who as recently as 1994 had won the team another Super Bowl title alienated fans.
The team did succeed in the stretch from 2001-2002. Interim GM Bill Walsh had orchestrated another famous rookie draft in 2000 in which he sent the 3rd overall choice to the Washington Redskins and got the 49ers a pair of 1st rounders and multiple later round picks at once. The players he chose quickly went on to start and form the backbone of the teams defense as it was rebuilding. After a learning year in 2000 however, many fans were unhappy that plans for a new stadium that were alive when Debartolo was forced out fell through. The team went on to a playoff berth in 2001 and made it to the divisional round in 2002 after an amazing last minute miracle against the New York Giants in the Wildcard round.

The downfall of the team (2002-2005)

The concerns over the cheapness of Dr. York arose once more when he chose to fire his Head Coach after the 2002-2003 season. This was largely considered a controversial move considering the team made it to the NFC Divisional playoffs that year and media claimed it was because York didn't want to give Steve Mariucci a lucrative extension. He also took the advice of retiring team General Manager and former Head Coach Bill Walsh and hired his protege, Terry Donahue as the acting General Manager after the 2001 season. It was largely believed that Mariucci's desire to have more say in personnel matters led to Donahue standing against him in the power struggle. Donahue was largely a flop as General Manager, losing many popular and successful players while signing some very poor players to big deals that later hurt the team. York also was behind the rather haphazard process of replacing Mariucci, which appeared to have no direction. The team interviewed several solid candidates from other clubs but in league circles it was said that they had no clue what they wanted in a coach. Despite many interviews and as time dragged on, the team unexpectedly turned around and hired Dennis Erickson. Erickson clashed with Donahue immediately as Donahue was rarely at team headquarters and spent most of his time trying to work from his home.
After the 2002 campaign the team had an up and coming coach and had just been deep into the playoffs and had won their division. By the time of the first kickoff, they had a retreaded coach who was unimpressive in his first professional stint and had failed to fix or extend the contracts of many important team veterans. Despite ample talent the team went 7-9 must to the displeasure of fans. York asked for Erickson to cut some of his extensive coaching staff, men to whom Erickson had worked with for many years and Erickson refused. The next offseason a massive rift between the head coach and front office occurred and the front office released and/or lost most of its good players for salary reasons. As a result a disenchanted head coach had a shell of a team to work with. By this point the team was considered one of the worst places for a player to go. Their disconnected front office, shaky ownership, unimpressive coach and even a hovel of a stadium was not appealing. The team lacked the salary cap space to sign good players and was clearly headed down hill.
Adding onto this was the loss of a stadium future for the club. The ownership did not have the money to carry through with a deal Eddie had set up before his departure as most of their finances and fluid cash went into purchasing the team. The deal involved a thorough rennovation of the Candlestick Park location. It included a shopping mall to be attached to the park for year round usage, a new mini-tower with luxury boxes, and a variety of mixed housing and commercial developments in the area around the stadium. After only a few short years the company aligned with Eddie Debartolo had folded and the deal along with it. Fans who saw the deal fade into complete obscurity pinned this on York. By the end of the 2003 season, the team had a further decayed stadium, a perceived 'cheap' owner, and no prospects for a better locale to play in. Furtther exacerbating the fact was the team chose to release a front office executive hired specifically to handle a new stadium deal, one which never materialized.
The 2004 campaign was one of the worst, if not the worst, in team history. The team ended up going only 2-14, a far cry from the glory years of the 80s and 90s, but both wins also came in overtime against perennial basement dwellers the Arizona Cardinals. The team was outclassed, outmatched, and outplayed by every opponent that year and they only barely squeezed out 2 wins against a very weak opponent. Amidst it all, York gave Donahue a multiple year extension as GM of the club. The team had no talent, was now committed to its unpopular GM, and had a reputation across the league as a terrible place to work because of the lack of direction. To make matters even worse, that year 2 offers had been publically tossed about in the media as wanting to buy the team. One was a group of private financiers led by 2 49ers alumni who were prepared to make an offer and the other was Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, a multi-billionaire who also said he would rebuild the stadium. Despite fans getting excited over the prospect, York said the team was not for sale. This was the weakest the team had been since before Bill Walsh had arrived.

The turnaround (2005-2007)

Dr. York turned things around immensely after that 2004 season when everything seemed to be at its darkest hour. Many expected coach Erickson to take the fall for the teams poor record despite Donahue having lost much of the team's talent before the season. To much surprise, York fired Erickson and bought out the last 3 years of his contract and also fired Donahue, buying out his entire extension. The coaching staff all loyal to Erickson were also fired and only a handful of assistants remained. York then immediately embarked on what was considered an impressive coaching search. He met with the GMs and owners of other teams to research the process and what questions to ask and lined up a good number of solid candidates for the job. The media covered the coaching search positively.
At the end John hired Baltimore Ravens Defensive Coordinator Mike Nolan who also happened to be the son of Dick Nolan, who was head coach of the 49ers for much of the 1970's. Immediately it was clear that Nolan was not only to be head coach but would be instrumental in helping rebuild the team's front office and reputation along with it as a top destination for players and executives. He was given final consent over all player decisions and went about modeling the teams front office after that of the New England Patriots. He hired Scot McCloughan, a scouting executive for the Seattle Seahawks to be his Vice President of Player Personnel.
Coach Nolan made a big initial splash with the team that has not faded. He came in and had what was considered the most solid draft since 2000 for the team. 2005 was an open audition mostly for the team and he traded away multiple players during the season itself for the draft picks and managed to coach the team to a solid 4-12 record after almost an entire 0-16 washout the year before. After the season he turned a smorgasboard of draft choices into another widely praised draft class including 2 1st rounders. He also kept the team out of the free agent market and put together a very healthy salary cap en route to leading the club to a 7-9 record and nearly winning the division going into the final stretch. Nolan has since brought in a big free agency class as well as another expectedly good draft class for what is expected to be a team capable of making the playoffs for the first time in 5years.
Along the way York has done a lot to repair his image. Hiring coach Nolan who has rebuilt the front office and made the team a top destination for players once more was a big help. It was also covered that York invested in an expanded weight room for the players as well as a resurfaced practice field at the request of Coach Nolan.During that time York also replaced the teams practice field turf and recently successfully sued and received a settlement with the city of San Francisco to force the city to pay maintenance costs on the deteriorating stadium that the city was ignoring as part of the team's lease with them. Most recently he turned down an offer to build a new stadium at Candlestick Point based on the lack of open parking upon which the fans could tailgate and the unlikelihood of a proposed near world-record-sized parking garage being built on the site and on time. Since then the new site is proposed to be a location in Santa Clara, very close to the team's practice facilities and on part of the parking lot leased by the Great America Theme Park. Meanwhile the city of San Francisco has since turned to Hunter's Point as a new location, the site is labeled by the government as a Super Fund site is still under cleanup for many years. While the team is listening, the city has gone ahead and agreed to a housing deal with Lennar corporation for the site, with or without the stadium.