Colin Kaepernick Has A Tough Night As His Birth Mother Watches From The Stands

Colin Kaepernick didn’t have such a good night in Denver. The game saw opposing quarterback Peyton Manning break Brett Farve’s touchdown pass record, as the Broncos routed the 49ers 42-17. Kaepernick was a weak 24 for 39 in passing, with an average gain per pass of 6.7 yards. But maybe there was more to the poor performance than just the thin air of the Mile High City. Kaepernick’s mother was in the stands.

No, not Teresa Kaepernick, who, along with her husband Rick, adopted Colin when he was just a few weeks old in late 1987. It was Colin’s birth mother, Heidi Russo, who came to watch him play. Sports reporter Benjamim Hochman of The Denver Post wrote that Russo would be in the stands, wearing her Kaepernick jersey, with Colin’s ten year old half brother at her side.

“And Colin Kaepernick will have no idea,” Hochman writes.

Except, Mr. Hochman, you announced it to the world.

It is pure speculation that Kaepernick’s knowledge that his birth mother would be at the game was the reason for his poor outing. After all, Hochman’s story was published in Sunday’s Denver Post, and there’s no indication that Colin was aware of it. No other media outlets have verified Hochman’s story, and the only commentary about it comes from SFGate, where writer Scott Ostler criticizes Hochman for bringing up the subject.

There’s a column in the Sunday Denver Post, by Benjamin Hochman, about Colin Kaepernick’s birth mother.

And here we go again.

The first three words of the column are offensive to Colin and to his family. Hochman possibly didn’t intend his lead to be offensive, but here it is:

“Colin Kaepernick’s mother…”

Colin and his mother, Teresa Kaepernick, and the Kaepernick family are fiercely protective of that title, mother, and they feel it belongs only to Teresa Kaepernick.

Ostler has a point. Heidi Russo gave up Colin when he was an infant, and she asked the Kaepernicks to stop sending her photos of Colin when he was seven. She has not been a part of his life since, as a 19-year-old, she gave him up for adoption. Ostler says that Kaepernick “is angry and offended when she goes public.” So, if he found out about Hochman’s story, it’s entirely possible that his mind was preoccupied enough to throw him off his game. Of course, it could be that Kaepernick and the 49ers met a superior team on a mission.

Denver came into the game with a 4-1 record, having lost only to defending champs Seattle. San Francisco was a respectable 4-2. But whereas Denver had outscored their opponents by an average of more than eight points per game, the 49ers came into the game with an average margin of victory of only 3 points.

Whatever the reasons for Kaepernick’s performance, it was just the latest in a season of mediocre outings for the young quarterback. Some have blamed the offensive line for Kaepernick’s woes, and there is some merit to that — he was sacked six times by the Denver defense. This much is clear: for the 49ers to contend, Kaepernick has to produce. And so far this season, he has not done that on a consistent basis.

Kaepernick has had other issues this year besides his birth mother. As reported in The Inquisitr, Colin was fined $10,000 by the NFL for his Beats by Dr. Dre headphones. There was also the matter of whether Kaepernick had gotten fitness model Brittany Renner pregnant. Colin Kaepernick seems to be a young man with a lot on his mind other than football.

[Photo credit: Chris Humphries-USA Today sports]