Jim Irsay remembered as ‘just a fun, cool guy’

INDIANAPOLIS — Tributes continue to pour in for Jim Irsay, the longtime owner of the Indianapolis Colts who died Wednesday at the age of 65.

”Jim loved the Colts but he also loved Indianapolis,” said Mayor Joe Hogsett. ”He had a lot on his mind and sometimes it was hard to get a word in edgewise, but that was Jim.”

Jim Irsay may have arrived in Indianapolis in 1984 after a midnight dash out of Baltimore aboard a Mayflower moving van as his father Robert Irsay literally took his ball and went home when the Maryland legislature wouldn’t support a new stadium for the Colts, but the city leaders who negotiated with the football family scion to build Lucas Oil Stadium in the early 2000s found a partner as committed to his adoptive hometown as he was to his team.

”He was a lion and had an impact on the city that will be felt for generations to come,” said Fred Glass, former President of the Capital Improvement Board. ”He never said this but I think he was really driven that he didn’t want his legacy to be leaving his city the way his dad’s legacy was really leaving Baltimore.”

Glass and former Mayor Bart Peterson negotiated with Irsay over the course of several NFL seasons to find a way get out of the antiquated RCA Dome and to build the team and the city a new stadium that would let the Colts compete with richer major market franchises while at the same time setting downtown Indianapolis up for future sporting, tourism, convention and development success.

“You could write a book about it,” said Peterson. “It had a lot of twists and turns but at the end of the day, and one thing that was consistent was, Jim wanted to get something done and wanted to keep the Colts in Indianapolis. In the three years that I worked very closely with him on that deal, never once did he suggest that he had an alternative to move the team out of the city. He never threatened that. He never even hinted at that.”

ESPN was forever reporting that the Colts were bound for Los Angeles.

”Jim was a tough negotiator but he was always transparent,” said Glass. “He was always clear about what he felt he needed, we were clear about what we needed, he never once walked away from the table, never once threatened to go to Los Angeles or anywhere else.”

It was former Mayor Bill Hudnut and a team of Indy developement visionaries a generation before who convinced Bob Irsay to bring the Colts to Indianapolis.

Peterson said the planners tasked with convincing the NFL to bless the deal that would result in Lucas Oil Stadium learned from Commissioner Paul Tagliabue that the Colts had no friends among the other team owners.

”There was still lingering animosity among the owners at the time that the Colts moved out of Baltimore to Indianapolis,” said Peterson, recalling the conversations with the commissioner at his New York headquarters. ”’Look, don’t expect a bunch of owners to rush to your aid here. You guys gotta get a deal done with Jim Irsay,’ because among the current ownership there wasn’t a lot of happy feelings and good will toward Indianapolis and if our team ended up moving because Jim made that decision, there weren’t gonna be a lot of tears shed outside of Indianapolis. So, we really had to get the deal done with Jim.”

Glass said city leaders knew the stakes that were involved, not only for Indianapolis’ long-term viability as an NFL city but also for the future of downtown.

”The landscape is littered with cities that stood strong and let their team go, St. Louis, Cleveland, Baltimore, only to turn around and pay even more to try to bring a new franchise in. One of the things we did know too, if we lost the Colts, we would never get another team. We would never be Cleveland or Baltimore and get another team because the NFL doesn’t like Indianapolis being in the middle of what they consider to be other people’s markets, by Cincinnati, Nashville, Chicago, so, we knew this was for all the marbles, and I think an NFL franchise is the coin of the realm as to whether you’re a major league city, and so we thought nothing less than the future of Indianapolis was at stake to make sure the Colts could stay here.

”Without Jim’s commitment to Indianapolis, there’s no Lucas Oil Stadium. If there’s no Lucas Oil Stadium, there’s no NCAA Final Fours, there’s no College Football Playoff, there’s no Super Bowl, there’s no world record for the Olympic swimming trials, there’s no Taylor Swift, there’s no WWE Royal Rumble, none of that happens, and most importantly, there’s no expansion of the convention center and there’s no major conventions which drive our economy drive our quality of life in Indianapolis.

“I shudder to think what Indianapolis is like without Jim Irsay and without Lucas Oil Stadium.”

What’s well known and still often a secret are the times that Irsay dug into his own pockets to paying heating bills for the cash-strapped Hoosiers, bought Super Bowl tickets for loyal fans, made a $1 million matching grant to Gleaner’s and launched “Kicking the Stigma” to address mental illness.

And he also collected a warehouse full of cars, guitars, historic documents and rock-n-roll artifacts, and held free concerts to showcase his musician friends to Colts fans.

“One of my favorite things about Jim is he was such a cool guy. His rock and roll collection, his historical artifacts, his relationships with the players,” said Glass. ”He was just a fun, cool guy that is everything you’d want in an NFL owner and a friend really.”

Former Mayor Peterson echoed those sentiments.

”He was just a decent, genuine, warm, giving, fun, loyal human being and I’m gonna personally really miss him and our city’s gonna miss him.”