Over the next ten years, he played 164 games for Hawthorn, winning the club's Best and Fairest award four times (in 1950–1952, and 1954) and serving as captain from 1955 until his retirement in 1959.

Following a Grand Final defeat to Geelong in 1963, he was forced to step down as coach when the Victorian Education Department offered him a job as a school principal in Stawell.

He was notorious for borrowing ideas from any source he thought would inspire the players, but it was his passion rather than his quotations that he was best known for.

In the 1975 VFL Grand Final against North Melbourne, his exhortation to the Hawthorn players at half-time was: "At least do something!

[7] AFL Commission Chairman Richard Goyder said: "In the Australian Football Hall of Fame, our Legends stand above our greats and, on behalf of the selectors, it is my great honour to declare John Kennedy was elected as a Legend, recognising his six-decade contribution to our game.

In honour of Kennedy's 80th birthday, a statue of him overlooking the Hawthorns' Waverley Park stadium was unveiled.