Former Student-Athlete Giving Back to AU Athletics

Beginning with the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal and extending through last summer in Rio, George “Cookie” Reed-Dellinger has experienced 14 Olympics (and his plans are already underway to attend the 2018 Winter Olympics in Korea). It is no surprise, then, that athletics also played a significant role in his American University experience.

Reed-Dellinger began playing soccer his sophomore year. Although at first he “ran like a fire hydrant and kicked with my toe,” he later became captain of the soccer team, a highlight of his time at AU. To this day he remains firmly connected to the team through volunteer service on the AU Athletics Eagles Leadership Council, through philanthropic support—he gave a gift to name the men’s locker room—and through mentoring student-athletes in their professional careers.

An alumnus twice over, an AU legacy parent (of daughter Whitney Dellinger, CAS/MA ’09), and a former adjunct professor in the Kogod School of Business, Reed-Dellinger now evaluates financial markets as senior vice president at Washington Analysis. As a professor, he showed his AU students the power of investing in education. He would assign a range of investments from stocks and bonds to horses and antiques. Then, after taxes or capital losses, Reed-Dellinger would underscore that “an investment in tuition is the best investment you can make. The IRS and the divorce court can’t take your education. You’ll feel better about yourself and probably make more money.”

Reed-Dellinger, who also recently joined the American University Alumni Board, has chosen to further his personal investment in AU student-athletes by naming the university as a beneficiary in his estate plans. He intends to provide need-based financial support through the “Cookie Scholarship” for student-athletes who play soccer at AU. “It is time to give back,” Reed-Dellinger says. “As I retire, it made sense to give more time, focus, and resources to AU. Once an Eagle, always an Eagle.”

For information on how your vision and charitable estate planning can create a legacy at American University, contact Seth D. Speyer, at 202-885-3411 or speyer@american.edu.