A conversation with Jim Irsay

I've always been fascinated with Jim Irsay, the billionaire owner of the Indianapolis Colts. I first started reading about him as a teenager in Hunter S. Thompson's Page 2 column on ESPN.com, where he was often the subject in columns like "The Colts can't close the deal" or "The shame of Indianapolis."

I recently got a chance to interview Irsay for BroBible.com. Irsay has amassed a massive collection of cultural artifacts over the past 20 years. There are all kinds of priceless Americana treasures in the Jim Irsay Collection: Abe Lincoln's walking cane, Jack Kerouac's original On The Road manuscript scroll, and Muhammad Ali's Rumble In The Jungle Championship Belt, just to name a few.

Irsay's guitar collection usually gets the spotlight. He's reportedly spent over $100 million on owning some of rock 'n roll history's greatest guitars: The Fender Strat Bob Dylan played at Newport Folk Festival in 1965, David Gilmour's Black Strat, Jerry Garcia's Tiger guitar, Kurt Cobain’s 1969 Fender Mustang guitar, which he used in the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” music video.

He frequently takes it on the road as a sort of roving museum exhibition and concert showcase, with free admission for all. I talked to him leading up to The Collection's arrival in San Francisco at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.

The interview is filled with colorful Irsay-isms. A couple of favorites:

On passion and ambition:

“I think those of us who are insistent about getting to the top of Mount Everest, it’s not because we want to see what’s on top and say we got to the top of Mount Everest. We wanna see where we can go from there.”

On ownership:

"No one owns anything. They borrow everything. I’ve never seen a hearse pull a U-Haul. Second of all, how does that make you feel just ’cause you own it? You feel differently about it. Why? Why? It’s like how can ownership change your feelings? They can’t.

I don’t think of owning anything. I just think of creating things that make people feel and, hopefully, feel inspired, feel well, feel spiritual, feel God, and the spirits that truly are there and pure love. That’s the only thing that interests me."

On the football life:

I’ve seen the Dead, I’ve seen RatDog. I wasn’t like a Deadhead. When I was 18, 19 or 20, I wasn’t hopping in the car and chasing them down somewhere as much. I had a lot of responsibility early in life with the football team and stuff like that…

You could live kind of two lives to a degree: The rock and roll life and the football life.

But in the end, football kind of trumped it just because I knew that’s what I was gonna do as a profession. So I kind of tended to that. But it was always such a thrill.

On his late friend, Hunter S. Thompson:

You just don’t know what was true and not true because of how he lived.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.