A Stand-Up Guy To the End

Jim Fassel, head coach of the New York Giants for the past seven seasons, has always been a class act. His best known bit was the 2000 mid-season playoff "guarantee" that carried the team to the Super Bowl. And his buck-stops-here attitude made him a rehreshing alternative to the bland media double-talk of most NFL coaches.

The Giants Fassel inherited in 1997 were an awful, aimless team with a losing attitude and a divided locker room. The defensive players resented the team's hapless offensive unit, the league's worst. The quarterback (Dave Brown) was hopeless. But by the dawn of this season, Fassel not only had mended the internals rifts but also helped turn the Giants' offense into the best in the league, one to be feared. With Fassel's guidance, Kerry Collins, plucked off the scrapheap in 1999, had developed into a first-rate NFL quarterback. The team was one game away from the NFC Championship last year, with only an errant field-goal snap to blame.

It may be a little hard to recall today, but back in August the Giants were considered the league's hottest young team, with a charismatic new star in Jeremy Shockey. Now mired at 4-10, losers of six straight, the Giants are a mess again. So Fassel fired himself, announcing yesterday he would not be back next season as coach, sparing the team further turmoil and once again showing his penchant for straight talk.

The Giants have no cheerleaders and don't use fancy jumbotron displays or rock music to jazz up fans. They are straight football. Fassel may not have taken the Giants to the promised land, but his classiness was perfect for the team and will be missed.

 Posted by glenn