Stephen Holder

stephen.holder@indystar.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Jim Irsay still remembers when he developed his lifelong love for weightlifting.

It was many years ago at the YMCA in Evanston, Ill., where he went after making an overdue decision to get in shape.

“I was a chubby kid,” the Indianapolis Colts owner said Tuesday. “I remember this guy coming in in work boots and blue jeans. He’d put 405 pounds on the bar. That’s four 45-pound plates on each side… When you see those 45-pound plates start to pile up, it’s cool. So, he’d do about 20 reps with 405. I was about 15, and I was like, ‘Man, if I could just be like him.’”

Weightlifting would become a passion of Irsay’s. He went on to become a competitive lifter before back injuries forced him to find another hobby. But the YMCA remained close to Irsay’s heart. Now, Irsay is acting on those emotions.

Irsay and the YMCA of Greater Indianapolis on Tuesday announced a multi-million-dollar donation to the organization from Irsay and his family, one that will result in the Downtown YMCA at CityWay being renamed the Irsay Family YMCA at CityWay. His donation will help the local Y’s years-long capital campaign to develop three new facilities: CityWay, Avondale Meadows and Pike. The fundraising efforts needed to break ground on the Pike facility are not complete, officials said, but Irsay’s gift gets them to “the 2-yard line,” said former mayor Bart Peterson, co-chair of the campaign.

Both Irsay and YMCA officials declined to specify the amount of the gift, but a source with knowledge of the details characterized it as being millions of dollars.

Irsay, his three daughters, quarterback Andrew Luck and Indianapolis mayor Joe Hogsett attended a news conference at the Downtown location to announce the gift, with Luck saying, “We as players always take great pride because we’re representing the Irsay family and we’re representing the (horse) shoe on the football field. But we also take great pride in the fact the Irsay family puts their name behind great community things.”

The CityWay YMCA opened last year to great fanfare, just blocks from the Colts’ home, Lucas Oil Stadium. At more than 87,000 total square feet, it is the largest YMCA facility in Indiana. Among its foremost missions is to serve area youth through a variety of educational and athletic programs.

And that, Irsay said, is the key to changing the community.

“The mayor talked about the problems that we have in our community,” Irsay said. “There are many… How do you deal with them most effectively? By getting to the youth. You take a young person, you set them on the right track, and you teach them.”

Irsay said his life experiences often influence his charitable donations, as they did with his and the Colts’ deep involvement in Riley Hospital for Children, to which Irsay once donated $1 million.

“My daughter, Casey, was sick in Chicago when she was 10 months old and I was sleeping in the hospital on Christmas Eve,” Irsay recalled. “So, you recall your own experiences but you’re blessed with the horse shoe, guys like Andrew Luck, who is so dynamic and when the game happens, we have the magic. The magic is that we draw communities together like nothing else, in a positive way. So, we just want to take advantage of that because I truly feel that every man and woman’s purpose on this earth is to be of service.”

Having his family’s name displayed prominently on a Downtown building is important to Irsay, too. It sends an important message, he said.

“It’s very important to me that 50 years from now, 100 years from now, we look back and say, ‘Look how positive the Irsay family and the Colts have been to Indiana,’” Irsay said. “This is just one more step toward that.”

The firefighter sculpting Peyton Manning