Stampede Blue
Rest in peace, and thank you, Jim!
Like many of you, longtime Indianapolis Colts team owner Jim Irsay, who passed away earlier this week at the age of 65-years-old, was the only owner I’ve ever really known for my favorite team—having assumed ownership of the franchise back in 1997.
As such, I wanted to take a bit of time to reflect on his saddening passing before writing.
Jim Irsay had his fair share of personal demons, especially having battled addiction earlier in this life, but by all accounts, he was a kind, generous, and quirky soul, who preferred to be regarded as more of a ‘steward’ of the Colts franchise than some sort of snooty owner.
He came with his own eccentricities, especially as it related to collecting rare musical artifacts or even more recently, starting his own band, ‘The Jim Irsay Band,’ that made him a bit of a ‘rock star’ compared to some of his fellow team owner colleagues. His goal was to help share these historic musical pieces and his band’s music, featuring legendary rock ‘n roll icons, with the general public through traveling showings and concerts.
(As a random aside, I was interning with the Indiana Sports Corp during Super Bowl XLVI and volunteered as an ‘usher’ for the Jim Irsay rock ‘n roll collection at the Indiana State Museum, I held a door open for Jim Irsay, and he said thank you!)
When you hear all of the heartfelt stories since his passing about his giving—and giving when he wasn’t even obligated to, and it’s easy to understand that what Irsay gave to the Indianapolis community and state of Indiana was far more than just a pro football team.
Former Colts All-Pro punter, turned mainstream ESPN personality Pat McAfee estimated it was around $100 million, but given that Irsay preferred to remain anonymous from paying for hospital stays to paying for funerals to assisting with education tuitions, and who really knows what that total charitable number is for sure. I’m guessing potentially a lot more.
Not to mention, his franchise’s ‘Kicking the Stigma’ initiative has raised funding and awareness for mental health, which has saved lives for an issue that’s far too often overlooked.
I’ll say this much, I didn’t know him personally, but I’ll still miss him greatly.
He wasn’t perfect, and admittedly made his fair share of mistakes as Colts owner (the ‘Star Wars numbers’ post-Peyton Manning comments; sticking with former general manager Ryan Grigson and head coach Chuck Pagano arguably too long out of a sense of loyalty, trying to be the furthest thing from his father, who previously made brash, impulse fires; and most recently, hiring former All-Pro center Jeff Saturday as an interim head coach).
However, he was incredibly passionate about this franchise and its fans—and wanted to win.
There’s some NFL owners who operate their squads more like a revenue generating business than a football franchise trying to consistently win Super Bowls.
*I never got that sense from Jim...
