Indianapolis (AP) – Jim Irsay began his football career as a ball boy. He finished it as a team owner.
Along the way, the NFL music man has created his own unique brand.
Irsay has progressed through the organization, learning to manage a football team, in restaurants the former traditional tradition of the colts and by creating what some have nicknamed the largest collection of guitar on earth – while fighting health problems and alcohol and pain relievers.
On Wednesday, the remarkable trip from Irsay ended at 65. Pete Ward, the longtime man of Irsay, Make the announcement In a press release, saying thatrsay died peacefully in his sleep.
“Jim’s dedication and passion for Indianapolis colts in addition to his generosity, his commitment to the community and, above all, his love for his family were not interrupted,” Ward said. “Our deepest sympathies go to her daughters, Carlie Irsay-Gordon, Casey Foyt, Kalen Jackson and his whole family while we cry with them.”
Irsay had a deep impact on the franchise.
With the help of the director general of the temple of fame Bill Polian, the coach of the renowned temple Tony Dungy and the quarter-rear of the renowned temple Peyton Manning, Irsay transformed the colts of a long-standing Rightstock into a candidate for the perennial title, even winning a title of the Super Bowl.
He then used this success – and the aura of Manning – to help convince the city leaders to build a stadium of retractable roof dome which opened in 2008 and finally allowed Indy to welcome a Super Bowl.
“My heart is broken to hear about the death of Jim Irsay,” said Manning on social networks. “He was an incredibly generous and passionate owner and I would always be indebted to have given 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, however, Irsay fought against health problems and became much less visible after falling at his home on December 8, 2023.
Carmel police, Indiana, a northern suburb of Indy, answered a call at 911 from the home of Irsay. According to the police report, The officers found Irsay breathing but insensitive and with a bluish complexion.
A month later, Irsay received a diagnosis of respiratory disease.
During Press conference of the annual training camp Last summer, Irsay told journalists that he continued to readjust from two subsequent surgeries.
“It’s great to see you, fans and to be here,” he said at the time. “I feel good, you know, just trying to put this stronger left leg, which will be.”
Irsay also did not speak during the recent draft of the NFL as it usually did.
But its story is unique in its kind.
As a teenager, he launched football balls with MVP quarter-rear Johnny Unitas and Bert Jones. He frequently relied on the lessons he learned by rubbing the elbows with some of the most important owners of the game – Al Davis, Lamar Hunt, Wellington Mara and Art Rooney – when they worked through the 1982 players’ strike and the implementation of a salary ceiling.
And he chaired the largest quarter of a century of Colts football thanks to the Manning and Quarterrière Andrew Luck.
Irsay managed everything, sales of public relations tickets while it increased by the organization, even by looking at the overall choice n ° 1 John Elway forces a trade in Denver in 1983.
When he took over as owner after the death of his father in 1997, things were different. The arrival of Manning helped Irsay – and the colts – to create passionate local follow -up which had not existed before but which is still strong today.
It was not always easy either.
– When a 55% inheritance tax threatened on the team, the young Irsay has found enough money to maintain the family business.
– When his most eminent players were about to take advantage of the free agency, Irsay has often punished the best dollar to keep them.
– And although some criticized it for having focused too much on the attack and not enough about the defense, the combination allowed the colts to find their place in a small market town that venerated basketball.
“Man hates losing more than he wishes,” said current director general Chris Ballard.
Things did not always go well, however.
Robert Irsay was insulted in Baltimore after this decision. Decades later, even after another Baltimore team, won a Super Bowl, and after Jim Irsay explained several times that the move was rushed by the city’s attempt to take the franchise through an eminent area, Baltimore has always called the only the Indianapolis football club.
A quarter of a century later, following a 2-14 file in 2011, Irsay tested the loyalty of the fans by publishing a 34-year-old Manning, who missed the whole season with a neck injury. Reconstruction began around the recruit QB Andrew Luck – a decision that made comparisons with her father’s unitas trade in 1973 and the subsequent selection of Jones in the project.
Manning’s imminent decision has also become a public show throughout the 2011-12 off-season and again in 2013 when Manning returned to Indy for the first time with its new team, the Denver Broncos.
“It was the right decision to make. Peyton and I talked about it. He said it said the best at the press conference: I did not decided, he did not decided, the gods of football had presented the cards and we both knew that it was best for him and us,” said Irsay later. “Emotionally, it was the most difficult thing I ever had to do. In professional football, it’s about winning and you have to be able to make the decisions that are the best for the franchise.”
But football was only part of Irsay’s story.
He spent millions of people to buy the original manuscripts to the novel defining the generation of Jack Kerouac “On the Road” and the “Big Book” of alcoholics and alcoholics and made them regularly available to the public.
His constantly expanding musical collection included instruments and articles by Beatles, James Brown, Prince, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Elton John, Johnny Cash and Jerry Garcia; Signed presidential documents; An original “sought” poster for John Wilkes’ stand; A 1953 Jackie Robinson bat; The title belt of Muhammad Ali of the “Rumble in the Jungle” of 1974; Even the saddle of the Triple Crown of the Secretariat wins.
Irsay has also been friendly with singers such as Stephen Stills and John Mellencamp, was inspired by the words of Bob Dylan and venerated the writings of Hunter S. Thompson, the “Gonzo journalist”.
“It’s very fun to have these pieces, and guitars are always the most interesting, in some ways, because you can play them, unlike a book, a manuscript or a painting,” said Irsay during the summer of 2016. “You can play them and they can become four dimensions.”
But Irsay also had his difficulties.
He was a recovery alcoholic and his professional successes could not isolate him from a constant battle against the pain relievers. In an interview in November 2023 with HBO Sports, he recognized that he had been in detoxification treatment at least 15 times and once accidentally overdosed.
The low point may have occurred in March 2014 when he was arrested near his home in Carmel by driving irregularly. When the police searched the car, they found nearly $ 30,000 in cash and many bottles of prescription pills. Five and a half months later, he pleaded guilty to an operating officer of a drunk vehicle, and the NFL commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Irsay for six games and inflicted a fine of $ 500,000.
Irsay described absence as heartbreaking.
“I couldn’t even imagine how difficult it was,” said the old heavers and now Talk-show host Pat McAfee, after the end of the suspension. “You are talking about a guy who has been around the colts all his life, who personifies horseshoe.”
However, it was wise enough to allow Polian almost free to build a team that won a number of regular season games then in a decade (115).
And he leaves an inheritance that will not blow in the wind.
Aside from Irsay’s images wearing a tie rolled up around his forehead on a magazine blanket, throwing football balls in a suit, or his statements on Twitter, he was a clever businessman with a big heart.
When the colts won the Super Bowl, he even sent a ring to the double ground champion Edgerrin James, who left for free agency before the championship season.
“The guy grew up with this team,” said Chuck Pagano then in January 2015. “He has so much knowledge and so much knowledge. He is a footballer.
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