Rick Reilly Doesn't Want To Tell Colin Kaepernick What To Do. Except He Kind Of Does

It was called "The Best Story of Super Bowl Week!" by the New York Giants Pat Hanlon.

It's been decried by others.

Yep. It must be Rick Reilly's music.

This week, Reilly wrote about Colin Kaepernick's family. Well, not exactly. Mr. Reilly wrote about Colin Kaepernick and the fact that he doesn't want to meet his birth mother. Kaepernick was adopted when he was about five weeks old. His mother gave him up for adoption as a 19 year old single mother.

The Kaepernicks, who had two children and had lost two others to heart issues, were more than willing to take Colin in. His adoptive mother sent letters and pictures for a while until his birth mother asked them to stop.

She did send Colin a letter for him to open when he was 18. He opened it but has not gone on to establish contact with her.

When Reilly pressed the issue, Kaepernick told him that he was not curious about meeting her.

Apparently, this puzzled Reilly. He regales us with the story about his own adopted daughter and the journey that she undertook. This was a piece that he wrote for Time Magazine in 2000 about his daughter going to South Korea to meet her birth mother, who was 18 when she gave her daughter up for adoption.

That is a wonderful story. Good for the young Ms. Reilly that she was able to make that journey.

Here's the problem though. It seems that because of his own family's narrative, Mr. Reilly wants to apply that same set of circumstances to Mr. Kaepernick.

Uh, wait. What's that, Rick?



Reading all kinds of reaction on this Kaepernick adoption piece. In it, I NEVER tell him what he sh/ do, only how it helped my daughter.
— Rick Reilly (@ReillyRick) January 30, 2013

Oh, you didn't? Is that how you read your own copy?

So when you wrote this:

The Kaepernicks have told Colin they'd have no problem with him speaking to Russo. They even met with her recently without Colin. But Colin hasn't budged on the issue. 

One of his friends told Yahoo! Sports that Colin would think it's "treasonous" to meet with Russo.

But it's not. It's healthy. It's healing. It's natural.
More than that, it's important. When that 11-year-old version of Rae finally got to meet her birth mother, even though it was only for 20 minutes, she glowed. Her roots were no longer a mystery. She finally knew where she came from.
Your parents are your parents forever. Nothing can ever change that.
But you can't imagine what it would mean, how deeply it would be felt, for a woman with regrets and doubts to once again hold her child, even for five seconds. A meeting like that could fill two hearts.
[snip]

I know my daughter is living a wonderful life in America, one that an18-year-old Korean mother could never have given a secret daughter. So I'm happy Rae has let her into that life. In fact, I'm delighted.

What better way to pay her back?

what, exactly did you mean?

Explain to me how that isn't telling Kaepernick that he has to meet his mother?

Did you grab his hand, force it onto a telephone and tell him to dial at gunpoint? No.

But your argument is crystal clear, Mr. Reilly. You think that Kaepernick not trying to contact his mother, not trying to make some reexamination of his "roots," not satisfying or not having some kind of curiosity is wrong.

That simply cannot be the case.

You use the words, "a vague notion of respect" higher up in the piece. You include the quoted term "treasonous." Those are loaded terms, and I think your own personal connection to this subject blinds you in a way.

You don't seem to acknowledge that maybe it's not treasonous. Maybe, just maybe, he doesn't want to face that past. He views the Kaepernicks as his family—they are the people who raised him. That is the connection that he believes he needs to honor. Those are the people he loves and respects and cares for.

It's not treasonous to not want to meet the person who gave birth to him. Yes, she carried him for nine months and cared for him for another outside the womb. But I don't think that that is enough justification for him to feel that he has to force some kind of a bond.

It's his life. If he does not want to address her, then so be it. It is not your business to determine, in a pedantic, preachy manner, that because your daughter had an illuminating experience on her trip to South Korea 12 years ago, then Colin Kaepernick has to fill an apparent hole that MUST be in his life, too. He has to address this aspect of himself if his life is going to be complete, because otherwise he must be living some kind of vacuous, shallow existence.

That's simply not the case, and to me, it is dishonorable to state otherwise.

Shame on you, Rick Reilly.