Stephen Holder

stephen.holder@indystar.com

ORLANDO, Fla. — In meeting rooms filled with men worth billions of dollars, Colts general manager Ryan Grigson huddled during this week's NFL owners meeting to discuss the intricacies of playing rules initiatives with a petite, 33-year-old mother, wife and lover of the arts who most Hoosiers wouldn't recognize.

Why?

Because right now, ultimate decision-making for the Indianapolis Colts falls to Carlie Irsay-Gordon.

You know her last name, but few actually know owner Jim Irsay's oldest daughter. Jim Irsay is undergoing inpatient treatment for an undetermined period after his recent drug-related arrest and is not currently overseeing the team on a day-to-day basis.

"She never ceases to amaze me with some of the questions she asks. She has it," Grigson said. "I've told this to Jim because I know these are the things that he would like to hear. And it's why (coach) Chuck (Pagano) and I have a great working relationship with her, because she gets it. It's not like we're sitting here trying to explain things to her. She already has a really good base of knowledge, and not just from an operations standpoint with dollars and (the salary) cap."

Irsay-Gordon's two sisters, Casey Foyt and Kalen Irsay, are also deeply involved in operating the team in their father's absence.

In Irsay-Gordon, the Colts appear to have someone whose makeup is tailor-made to lead. She declined interview requests because of her father's pending legal issues, but those who know her say she possesses a rare ability to be gracious and caring while not mincing words nor speaking ambiguously.

And, as all leaders do, she has expectations.

High expectations.

"She expects (excellence) just like her father does," Grigson said. "... That's something that their father, I'm sure, has ingrained in them. But at the same time, there's a tremendous amount of respect given to everyone in the building, and they display that. There's no pretentiousness or condescension. You know who's in charge, but the delivery, I think, is something that's unique in this league."

Rare breed

Female involvement in the NFL's ownership ranks is, in itself, rare. The Irsay sisters, as their father's current situation has reinforced, are in line to take over the team. Currently, each holds the title of vice chair/owner.

Theirs is a small club. Martha Ford, widow of the late Detroit Lions owner Bill Ford, Sr., and Virginia McCaskey of the Chicago Bears, are the only female principal owners in the NFL. But Martha Ford is 88 and McCaskey 91, and each has a son who handles a majority of ownership responsibilities. Cincinnati Bengals executive vice president Katie Blackburn, the daughter of team owner Mike Brown, is the heir to the franchise and its top contract negotiator.

Clearly, Irsay-Gordon is a rare breed. Still, she effortlessly blends in.

That's an observation made by IndyCar driver Ed Carpenter, a schoolmate of Irsay-Gordon at Park Tudor School in Indianapolis.

"They do a good job of living pretty typical lives," said Carpenter, whose children attend the same preschool as Irsay-Gordon's. "She blends in really well. I look at her now and when I see her, I see a mom. She changes diapers just like the rest of us. She does all the normal things that the rest of do and is a lot more normal than people probably expect. She just happens to have an ownership stake in a professional football team."

It's that trait that Tania Castroverde Moskalenko, president and CEO of Carmel's Center for the Performing Arts, considers among Irsay-Gordon's most admirable.

"There's no way you'd ever know who she is unless someone told you," said Castroverde Moskalenko, who has gotten to know Irsay-Gordon after she joined the center's board of directors.

"She doesn't drop her name, but obviously everybody on our board knows who she is. If somebody would walk into the room and didn't know who was who, they wouldn't know she was an Irsay. ... She just has a grace about her. I could never imagine Carlie as the type of person who would walk around using her name. ... I just couldn't imagine that."

People who know her in different arenas all cite a common characteristic when describing Irsay-Gordon: Smart.

"She's extremely intelligent and she's a really quick study," Grigson said. "We talk football with her, Chuck (Pagano) and I. She's just really smart, so anything she comes to us with is well thought out."

Irsay-Gordon's influence isn't limited to the football side of the organization. She is equally interested in the goings-on of the marketing department, the performance of the sales team and the strategies employed by the ticket office.

The Irsay sisters, former general manager Bill Polian said, "all care about the team and they all really know what the inner workings of the team are and what the issues are."

Diverse interests

Irsay-Gordon's interests away from the Colts are similarly diverse. Just look at her educational background. She majored in religious studies at tiny Skidmore College in upstate New York.

Her minor? Geoscience.

Jim Irsay loves rock and roll. Irsay-Gordon, it seems, loves the arts. She actively supports them through her commitment to the Center for the Performing Arts.

"She wouldn't be sitting on these boards if she wasn't passionate about the value of arts in our community," Castroverde Moskalenko said. "She is engaged. She's a supporter and, from my conversations with her, the arts are very important to her."

But other than her family, attorney husband Zach Gordon and their three children, perhaps nothing ranks higher than the one thing Irsay-Gordon has known all her life: Football.

She was raised on it. It's been a part of her very identity from birth.

"I grew up in a football family, so I know exactly what it's like to grow up in a football family and be around it your entire life," said Pagano, the son of a coach. "You can see that."

The object of the game, whether player, coach or owner, is to win. Ultimately, that's what drives Irsay-Gordon.

"Jim hates losing more than he loves winning, and I think Carlie and the rest of the Irsay girls are all the same," Pagano said. "They're wired the same way."

Staff writer Zak Keefer and researcher Cathy Knapp contributed to this report. Call Star reporter Stephen Holder at (317) 444-6520. Follow him on Twitter: @HolderStephen