Bob Irsay once breathed fire.
Now, partly paralyzed, he breathes with the help of a ventilator.
Irsay, the once-impetuous owner of the Indianapolis Colts, became a symbol of greedy carpetbagging by sports owners long before Art Modell, when he spirited his team away from Baltimore in a platoon of Mayflower vans in 1984.
But Irsay’s 73-year-old body is partly paralyzed from a stroke suffered in November 1995 and weakened much more by congestive heart failure. A recent six-week hospital stay for his heart problem slowed his physical therapy. “But he is not dying,” said his 46-year-old wife, Nancy. “He didn’t come home to die.”
The Colts (9-7) are in the playoffs for the second consecutive year, having overcome many injuries and the abrupt change in coaches from Ted Marchibroda to Lindy Infante. Last season, the team lost to Pittsburgh 20-16 in an AFC Championship Game that went down to the last play.
But even as the team seeks to radically alter its RCA Dome lease and is the topic of speculation about moving to Cleveland, Irsay is the central character in a feud between his wife and his financial trustees, including his son Jim, 37, the Colts’ general manager. At issue is control of Irsay’s assets, which Nancy Irsay estimates at about $230 million, including the team.
The trustees control virtually all of Irsay’s assets and appear mistrustful of his wife. She said the trustees have not served her husband well, have embarrassed her and have forced her to run the mansion mostly from her husband’s $500,000 salary. They made her return $100,000 in pearls and diamonds that she said Irsay had picked out for their seventh anniversary.
“You had to wonder, since Nancy declared Bob incompetent, how he could make a decision to buy $100,000 in jewelry,” said Michael Chernoff, a trustee and the Colts’ general counsel.
The trust was created in 1993, long before Irsay had his stroke, to protect his financial interests and took effect only when he was declared legally incompetent. In a letter written last October by a psychiatrist hired by Nancy Irsay, Dr. Larry Davis said: “He is suspicious of his son Jimmy, who is one of the five trustees, and told me that he believes that Jimmy is only out for his own best interests.”
“They thought he was going to die,” said Nancy Irsay in an interview last week. “But he’s getting better every day.”
Except for her stepson, Nancy said the other trustees have rarely visited Irsay. (Chernoff said his access has been limited.) “They want him D-E-A-D,” she said.
Chernoff said: “She’s talking about a deathwatch. I’m talking life watch. I’d love for Bob to walk into my office right now.”
Jim Irsay said his stepmother has inappropriately sought public sympathy by soliciting media support and seeks to alienate father from son. He denied her allegation that he has repeatedly spoken of his father as being near death.
“She has sat by this poor man’s side and told him the world according to Nancy,” said Irsay. “You can’t change the fact that she’s sat there and whispered in his ear what she’s chosen to say.”
