Fassel, wife put son up for adoption in 1969

[TypicalBill]

New York Giants coach Jim Fassel and wife Kitty have reunited with the son they gave away for adoption 34 years ago.


The Fassels met their son, John Mathieson, on Wednesday at a hotel in Highlands Ranch, Colo. On April 5, 1969, they put up their 3-day-old boy for adoption, and kept his birth a secret to all but their immediate family.

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[Ebenezer]

As an adoptive parent I can understand the Fassel's joy. It will be many years before we need to face this issue and hopefully when the time comes we can help our daughter with which ever path she chooses.

[SABURZFAN]

being a parent,it would crush me to force myself to put up my kids for adoption.i would have to be totally down and out.

[Ebenezer]

many kids get put up for adoption simply because the parents aren't married and can't afford to keep them. we are very sure that is the story with our daughter's biological parents (and they were a married couple).

[TypicalBill]

it must've been very difficult to let go of him in the first place.... but i think it'll be even more difficult to explain to his son why he did in the first place.

i dont know...what do you think EB?

[Gunzlingr]

I think they gave him a wonderful gift. Things happen, and if it was in the best interest of the child, it was the right choice.

[Gunzlingr]

Parents huddle with son they lost

In the city where the story began, Denver hosted a family reunion this week that is as astonishing as it is heartwarming.

Jim Fassel, coach of the New York Giants, and his wife, Kitty, were reunited with the son, John Mathieson, they placed for adoption in Denver 34 years ago, before the couple married.

An exhaustive search over several years concluded last week when a Denver caseworker called the Fassels to let them know their son had been located. He was married, a father of four girls, working as a general sales manager at Kuni Lexus in Littleton, living in Highlands Ranch.

And eager to speak to his birthparents

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[Ebenezer]

Originally posted by TypicalBill
it must've been very difficult to let go of him in the first place.... but i think it'll be even more difficult to explain to his son why he did in the first place.

i dont know...what do you think EB?

That's a good question. Every situation is different. We plan on telling our daughter everything the agency told us. IOO, honesty has to be 100%. WE are fortunate in that ours was an international adoption but we have every plan to praise the parents for giving our daughter the best chance she had at a life rather than chastise them for giving her up. It will probably require a lot of work but we'll help her over every obstacle...all we can do is raise her until she is 18 and then let her make her own decisions. We have taken the position that we will not hide anything and we will provide all information, albeit when we think she is mentally mature enough to handle it.

[TypicalBill]

i wish you all the best Eb

[Ebenezer]

thanks TB

[The_Philster]

Giants coach, wife appear with son given for adoption

WOODCLIFF LAKE, N.J. (May 21, 2003 8:38 p.m. EDT) - New York Giants coach Jim Fassel didn't need much time to recruit the team's latest fan - his newfound son.

John Mathieson was asked if he planned to switch allegiance from the Denver Bronocs to the Giants now that he has learned Fassel is his father.

"Yes, he does," Fassel interjected.

Mathieson, a 34-year-old car salesman from Colorado, laughed.

"I guess I'm going to be switching here real quick," he said....
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[The_Philster]

Reunion embraced by Fassel family

WOODCLIFF LAKE, N.J. - The Fassels are a football family, after all, husband and wife, sons and daughter. They tell time differently from the rest of us. We use hours and minutes, days and weeks and months. They don't.
And so, when it became time for Jim and Kitty Fassel to tell their children the secret they'd carried together for 34 years, Kitty remembered it this way: "It was right after the Eagles win, this past year ... "

The win over the Eagles, the win by Jim Fassel's New York Giants, happened Dec. 28. The Christmas holidays were ending and the family would be scattering again, to their jobs and lives and to football - one Fassel son coaches in New Mexico, another plays at Boston College. Wheels were turning, momentum was building, and this wasn't something the Fassels wanted to tell their four children over the phone. ...

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