Gentleman Jim

Down-to-earth Fassel puts family first

Incredible story about Jim Fassel. Did you see it Friday morning? Seems that 35 years ago when Fassel and his future wife, Kitty, were 19-year-old students living in Southern California, they discovered that Kitty was pregnant with Jim's child. Unprepared for parenthood, Kitty was dispatched to a Catholic girls home in Denver, had the baby on April 5, 1969, immediately gave it up for adoption, and went back to life in Southern California. When Fassel and Kitty were married in 1971, and later had four kids of their own, it became the family secret ... until this week. Because a recent change to Colorado adoption laws has made reunions easier than in the past, the Fassels and John Mathieson met for the first time on Wednesday in Mathieson's hometown of Highlands Ranch, Colo. The touching story was reported in The New York Times and Denver Post.

Fassel was unavailable Friday, said to be traveling back from Colorado after the emotional family gathering. The Giants weren't quite inundated with calls about the story, but they were hit hard with them, and Fassel will answer all the remaining questions in due time. For now, he's going to digest having a daughter-in-law and four grandchildren he never knew he had. How amazing. And how emotional to finally know that the baby is OK, and grown up, with a family.

As someone who's gotten to know Fassel pretty well over the years, I would make this point: If there's any coach I can imagine worrying about a child he put up for adoption, and fretting every year about his whereabouts and health, it's Fassel. The man cares. Twenty-eight hours before taking the Super Bowl field in Tampa in 2002, Fassel spent 10 minutes grilling my daughter and her friend about the time they were having at the big game. Fassel has the capacity to make strangers feel welcome, and important.

His caring for the family of a deceased firefighter after 9/11 has been touching and lasting. I've heard people who don't know Fassel talk about him as if he's a grandstander, and I have to tell you I thought he was grandstanding when he made his famous/infamous playoff guarantee when the team was slumping two months before that Super Bowl in Tampa. But I've learned this about Fassel: In football, he does what he thinks is best for his team at the time. He doesn't care how it's perceived. In life, he's a good man, a caring man, a friendly man. It's not cool in some hardened coaches' eyes to be a nice guy when you coach in the NFL. But it's cool to Fassel.

Until last year, I was a weekly regular for an NFL news segment on his WNBC coach's show in New York. During the last two years I was involved, we taped early on Thursday mornings, before his day started. I can't tell you how many times the crew would be waiting for him -- a minute or two -- while he finished a thought or a conversation with me. About anything. The difficulty of playing at the Vet. The fun of a high school game. The best gossip he knew from around the league. His long hours trying to get Kerry Collins out of his mechanical funk. Or he'd spend a few extra minutes having coffee with the crew, talking about nothing at all.

He knew how to schmooze, how to be human, in a business where lost minutes preparing for a game gives some coaches gray hair. Fassel knew he'd have enough time to prepare for games. He's the kind of guy who wanted to have enough time to prepare for life, too.

It's great that the only hole in his large heart has been filled after so many years.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com. Click here to send him a comment.

 

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