Jints win for absent Fassel
He knew he was where he should be, where he belonged, and yet Jim Fassel needed a reassuring performance by his Giants to properly ease his mind.
The next time anyone says preseason games are essentially meaningless, they would be wise to first check what transpired Friday night in Minnesota and then hear how uplifting the episode was for Fassel and his family.
Engaging in what he described as “the most unusual thing I’ve ever done,” Fassel watched from afar as the Giants thrashed the Vikings 36-21 inside the Metrodome.
As his team dominated on the field, Fassel watched not from the sideline but from his mother’s hospital room in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Call it a long-distance get-well card that burst through the television screen and a result that, momentarily at least, provided a welcome diversion from Dorothy Fassel’s failing health.
“For my whole family, they needed something to smile and get excited about,” Fassel said yesterday from Arizona. “What really made it good was the way the guys played. It really gave me a lift.”
Fassel left the team Thursday to be with his 76-year old mother, who is in intensive care at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Scottsdale, suffering from what Fassel says are “a general number of health issues.”
She was placed on a kidney dialysis machine on Friday and yesterday was breathing on her own, without the aid of a ventilator.
“She’s comfortable,” Fassel said, “but she’s still got some things we got to get straightened out.”
There was no great debate in his mind, Fassel said, whether he should accompany the team to Minnesota or travel to his mother’s side. Still, this was no casual decision, and he said any conflict he might have wrestled with was gone after he saw how forcefully and crisply the Giants played with offensive coordinator Jim Skipper and defensive coordinator John Fox running the show.
“Now that I’m here, seeing my mom and knowing what kind of situation she’s in, and knowing the way my team played, I’m very comfortable with everything right now,” he said. “Those guys played so good, it made me relax.”
It will be at least two or three days, Fassel said, before he might rejoin the team at training camp in Albany, and he says he has full confidence that Skipper and Fox can handle the practice sessions – which were laid out in great detail by Fassel months ago – in his absence.
When he arrived at the hospital on Thursday, Fassel said his mother “tried to give me a hug and a big smile” and that she knew her son was there, asking him, “How long are you going to stay?” His response? “As long as it takes.”
Fassel’s two sisters live in Arizona and strongly suggested that their brother make the trip as their mother’s condition deteriorated. Fassel watched the first half of the nationally televised game in the hospital room and learned that his mother’s physician and critical-care nurse were both Viking fans from Minnesota.
“They said, ‘Today, we’re Giants fans,'” Fassel said.
For the second half, Fassel moved to his hotel room, and in both places he felt out of place so far away from the team that consumes nearly every ounce of his energy and nearly every second of his waking hours.
During the game, he called Pat Hanlon, the team’s vice president of communications, several times for injury updates when any of the Giants hobbled off the field.
Like most everyone else who tuned in at home, Fassel was impressed with what he saw.
“We seemed to play with focus and smarts,” he said. “Right now we look like a team that’s disciplined. We’re off on the right foot, anyway.”
Fassel, of course, knew the gameplan but not each individual play, although he could usually tell what was coming based on the Giants’ offensive formation. On the Giants’ third play, his eyes widened when Kent Graham’s screen pass to rookie Sean Bennett broke for a 53-yard touchdown.
“That screen pass was outstanding … I got excited about that one,” Fassel said.
Informed that many players said they were saying prayers for his mother, and that others said they wanted to win the game for the head coach, Fassel’s voice filled with emotion.
“It makes me feel very good,” he said. “I think I’ve got a great relationship with our players. I want to build a family. When one of your family members needs you, you do it. It means you care.”