Words tried their best to express Jim Irsay’s feelings as he talked virtually nonstop about his Indianapolis Colts getting to their first Super Bowl. But when the 47-year-old former Winnetkan brought up his father, he had to pause to wipe the tears.
“I think about my dad,” he said. “I know he couldn’t be happier. He would be going crazy just dealing with the whole Chicago contingent.”
Robert Irsay owned a sheet metal and air-conditioning business that had become one of Chicago’s largest by 1970. He knew Bears founder George Halas and in 1972 he bought the Los Angeles Rams for $19 million, then traded them to Carroll Rosenbloom for the Baltimore Colts in a pre-arranged deal.
After he moved the Colts to Indianapolis in 1984, the Baltimore Sun described Irsay as “football’s most reviled figure,” leaving his son a legacy of mismanagement and mistrust.
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When the Colts won the American Football Conference title Sunday by beating the New England Patriots in the biggest comeback in championship game history, it only mirrored what Irsay has been doing while undoing the sins of the father.
As a 24-year-old general manager not far removed from his ballboy days, then as 38-year-old owner after his father’s death in 1997, Jim Irsay battled and perhaps invited doubts that lingered until the Colts ended rumors of a move to Los Angeles by committing to a stadium that will open in downtown Indianapolis in 2008.
For the Colts to get to a Super Bowl after knocking on the playoff door in seven of the last eight years is enough cause for celebration. To play the Bears in that Super Bowl seems downright providential, especially for Jim Irsay.
“It almost had to be this way,” he said. “We used to go to the Bear games in Wrigley Field in the ’60s. I can remember driving there with him, sitting in the freezing cold, just a little kid.”
Making his own way
Halas was only five years removed from coaching and still running the Bears when Bob Irsay bought the Colts.
“George Halas was at my confirmation when I was 12 years old,” Jim Irsay said. “He was at my wedding, so the connection is huge.”
When the Colts traveled to Baltimore for the conference semifinal game Jan. 14, Irsay was greeted with signs and taunts. Coach Tony Dungy said he “took a lot of abuse that was not called for.”
Colts quarterback Peyton Manning calls Irsay “as good an owner and as good a man as there is.” That endorsement could have something to do with the $98 million contract Manning signed in 2004, but it’s a far cry from the way the late Colts Hall of Fame quarterback John Unitas described Jim’s father.
“You couldn’t accept anything Mr. Irsay told you as being totally truthful,” Unitas said.
In a scathing Sports Illustrated article in 1986, Bob Irsay’s 84-year-old mother, Elaine, accused her son of stealing family money, saying, “He’s a devil on earth, that one.”
Irsay’s former wife, Harriet, told the magazine: “Owning a football team really made him feel powerful. Between his power and his drinking, he just became obnoxious. He was always belittling the players and coaches, constantly in a fit of temper.”
Jim Irsay has his own eccentricities. An amateur musician and poet who collects rare guitars and historical documents, he stunned scholars in 2001 when he paid $2.4 million for Jack Kerouac’s scroll manuscript of “On the Road,” the beatnik bible, now on loan for exhibition. During a 2002 interview with the Tribune, Irsay stripped to a tie and a judiciously placed guitar for a photo-shoot.
Hiring the right people
But Irsay’s commitment to the Colts cannot be disputed. After the death of his father, Jim hired well-regarded general manager Bill Polian to run the organization. When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fired Dungy shortly after the Colts fired coach Jim Mora, Irsay said he “beat Bill to the speed dial.”
“The energy to get us to where we need to be, it has taken faith and belief and exorcism of some of the things of the past because there has been a lot of energy trying to bring down the horseshoe,” Irsay said, referring to the team logo.
The Colts play in the smallest stadium in the league (56,000). Soldier Field is the second smallest. Indianapolis is one of the smaller markets in the league, unable to attract competitive local broadcast rights or advertising revenue, yet Irsay is proud to say, “The Colts have the highest payroll in the NFL. A lot of it has been out of my pocket. That has made it even harder and it’s more satisfying than ever.”
Irsay said he has been touched by the example of older owners, especially Kansas City’s Lamar Hunt and Wellington Mara of the New York Giants, who died during the last two seasons. Irsay said he considers himself more “steward” than owner.
“I feel almost foolish sitting here and saying we’re in a small market and we’re a high-paying team and looking for sympathy because those guys knew what it was like getting on the trains and putting on the games,” he said. “The Tribune has a picture of that [NFL title] game in Chicago Stadium in 1932. [Because of snow] they put sawdust down and played the game [inside]. You have an appreciation for what these people built and how they built it.”
For this Super Bowl to be in Miami also means a lot to Irsay.
“I went to grade school in Miami to be near my handicapped brother, who passed away eight or nine years ago,” Irsay said. “My mom is there now. She’s 86 and has had a couple of light strokes but is doing well. She still has her house on Sheridan Road in Winnetka.”
Irsay said his relationship with the Bears’ McCaskey family “has always been great. Ed McCaskey (Halas’ son-in-law) was just a great friend and like an uncle and Virginia (Halas’ daughter) is such a wonderful woman and she always asks about my mom.”
Close, but not too close
The last Colts’ trip to the Super Bowl was after the 1970 season, two years before Bob Irsay bought them and began trying to call plays from his perch in the owner’s box. Now Jim Irsay watches Manning set records as both the quarterback and team try to prove they’re winners.
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“It would be a little bit spiritually arrogant to think the story revolves around me,” he said. “As an owner you have a chance to be a dream-maker and what happened Sunday night, there will be great-grandfathers and grandmothers telling people 80 years from now they were there.
“There are families being bonded, miracles happen you don’t even know, people that maybe haven’t talked for years getting together. That’s an incredible thing about our game is that it’s so much more than a game, because it’s in the fabric of Americana.”
For a minute, Jim Irsay almost sounded like he was already a winner, until he turned around in his desk chair and pointed to the Lamar Hunt Trophy on his shelf.
“It has been great, but the goal is that Lombardi (Super Bowl) Trophy,” he said. “This is so special, with Lamar’s name on it. That guy named Lombardi, that’s the trophy you want.”
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