Jim Irsay started his football career as a ball boy. He finished it as a team owner.
Along the way, the NFL’s music man created his own, unique brand.
Irsay worked his way up through the organization, learning how to run a football team, restoring the Colts’ once-proud tradition to glory and created what some have dubbed the greatest guitar collection on Earth — all while battling health issues and addictions to alcohol and painkillers.
On Wednesday, Irsay’s remarkable journey ended at age 65. Pete Ward, Irsay’s longtime right-hand man, made the announcement in a statement, saying Irsay died peacefully in his sleep.
“Jim’s dedication and passion for the Indianapolis Colts in addition to his generosity, commitment to the community and, most importantly, his love for his family were unsurpassed,” Ward said. “Our deepest sympathies go to his daughters, Carlie Irsay-Gordon, Casey Foyt, Kalen Jackson and his entire family as we grieve with them.”
Irsay had a profound impact on the franchise.
With the help of Hall of Fame general manager Bill Polian, Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy and Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning, Irsay turned the Colts from a longtime laughingstock into a perennial title contender, even winning a Super Bowl title.
He then used that success — and Manning’s aura — to help convince city leaders to build a retractable roof dome stadium that opened in 2008 and eventually allowed Indy to host a Super Bowl.
“I am heartbroken to hear about Jim Irsay’s passing,” Manning said on social media. “He was an incredibly generous and passionate owner and I will always be indebted to him for giving me my start in the NFL. His love for the Colts and the city of Indy was unmatched. His impact on the players who played for him will not be forgotten.”
More recently, though, Irsay battled health issues and became far less visible following a fall at his home Dec. 8, 2023.
Police officers from Carmel, Indiana, a northern suburb of Indy, responded to a 911 call from Irsay’s home. According to the police report, the officers found Irsay breathing but unresponsive and with a bluish skin tone.
A month later, Irsay was diagnosed with a respiratory illness.
During his annual training camp news conference last summer, Irsay told reporters he was continuing to rehab from two subsequent surgeries.
“It’s great to see you guys, the fans and to be out here,” he said at the time. “I’m feeling great, you know, just trying to get this left leg stronger, which it will be.”
Irsay also did not speak during the recent NFL draft as he usually did.
But his story is one of a kind.
As a teenager, he tossed footballs with MVP quarterbacks Johnny Unitas and Bert Jones. He relied frequently on the lessons he learned from rubbing elbows with some of the game’s most important owners — Al Davis, Lamar Hunt, Wellington Mara and Art Rooney — as they worked through the 1982 players’ strike and the implementation of a salary cap.
And he presided over the greatest quarter-century of Colts football thanks to Manning and quarterback Andrew Luck.
Irsay handled everything from ticket sales to public relations as he rose through the organization even watching No. 1 overall pick John Elway force a trade to Denver in 1983.
When he took over as owner following his father’s death in 1997, things were different. The arrival of Manning helped Irsay — and the Colts — create a passionate local following that hadn’t previously existed but still remains strong today.
It wasn’t always easy, either.
— When a 55% inheritance tax threatened his hold on the team, the younger Irsay found enough cash to keep the family business.
— When his most prominent players were about to cash in during free agency, Irsay often ponied up top dollar to keep them.
— And though some criticized him for focusing too much on offense and not enough on defense, the combination allowed the Colts to find their place in a small-market city that revered basketball.
“The man hates to lose more than he likes to win,” current general manager Chris Ballard often said.
Things didn’t always go smoothly, though.
Robert Irsay was reviled in Baltimore following the move. Decades later, even after another Baltimore team won a Super Bowl, and after Jim Irsay repeatedly explained the move was precipitated by the city’s attempt to take the franchise through eminent domain, Baltimore still referred to the team only as the Indianapolis football club.
A quarter-century later, following a 2-14 record in 2011, Irsay tested the fans’ loyalties by releasing a 34-year-old Manning, who missed the entire season with a neck injury. The rebuild began around rookie QB Andrew Luck — a move that drew comparisons to his father’s trade of Unitas in 1973 and the subsequent selection of Jones in the draft.
The impending decision about Manning also became a public spectacle throughout the 2011-12 offseason and again in 2013 when Manning returned to Indy for the first time with his new team, the Denver Broncos.
“It was the right move to make. Peyton and I talked about it. He said it best in the press conference: I didn’t decide, he didn’t decide, the football gods had laid the cards out and we both knew it was best for him and us,” Irsay said later. “Emotionally, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. In professional football, it’s about winning and you have to be able to make the decisions that are best for the franchise.”
But football was only part of Irsay’s story.
He spent millions buying the original manuscripts to Jack Kerouac’s generation-defining novel “On The Road” and Alcoholics Anonymous’ “Big Book” and routinely made them available to the public.
His ever-expanding musical collection included instruments and items from The Beatles, James Brown, Prince, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Elton John, Johnny Cash and Jerry Garcia; signed Presidential documents; an original “wanted” poster for John Wilkes Booth; a 1953 Jackie Robinson bat; Muhammad Ali’s title belt from the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle;” even the saddle from Secretariat’s triple crown wins.
Irsay also befriended singers such as Stephen Stills and John Mellencamp, took inspiration from the lyrics of Bob Dylan and revered the writings of Hunter S. Thompson, the self-described “Gonzo journalist.”
“It’s a lot of fun to have these pieces, and guitars are always kind of the most interesting, in some ways, because you can play them, unlike a book, a manuscript or a painting,” Irsay said during the summer of 2016. “You can play them, and they can become four-dimensional.”
But Irsay also had his struggles.
He was a recovering alcoholic and his professional successes couldn’t insulate him from a constant battle with painkillers. In a November 2023 interview with HBO Sports, he acknowledged he had been to rehab at least 15 times and once accidentally overdosed.
The low point may have come in March 2014 when he was arrested near his home in Carmel while driving erratically. When officers searched the car they found nearly $30,000 in cash and numerous bottles of prescription pills. Five and a half months later, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of operating a vehicle while intoxicated, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Irsay for six games and fined him $500,000.
Irsay described the absence as heartbreaking.
“I couldn’t even imagine how hard that was,” former Colts punter and now talk-show host Pat McAfee said after the suspension ended. “You’re talking about a guy who’s been around the Colts his entire life, who personifies the Horseshoe.”
Still, he was wise enough to allow Polian almost free rein to construct a team that won a then-record number of regular-season games in a decade (115).
And he leaves a legacy that won’t be blowing in the wind.
Aside from the images of Irsay wearing a tie wrapped around his forehead on a magazine cover, tossing footballs in a suit, or his utterances on Twitter, he was a shrewd businessman with a big heart.
When the Colts won the Super Bowl, he even sent a ring to two-time rushing champ Edgerrin James, who had left in free agency before the championship season.
“The guy grew up with this team,” then-coach Chuck Pagano said in January 2015. “He’s got so much insight and so much knowledge. He’s a football man through and through. It runs through his veins and he’s got so much wisdom to share with all of us. He makes a huge impact.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.