By CHUCK POLLOCK, Wellsville Sun Senior Sports Columnist
The other day, an educated friend of mine — college professor with a doctorate — asked me a pointed question?
“Why does the media have to run the story and photos chronicling the alleged affair involving Patriots coach Mike Vrabel and former lead NFL insider for the The Athletic, Dianna Russini?
“Nobody cares.”
Well, of course they do.
I shook my head and jokingly told her, “You’d make a lousy managing editor.”
Then I pointed out that I’m a fan of newspaper movies — my favorite is “All the President’s Men” — and a line from one of them has long stuck with me. A reader asks a reporter why his paper is running a controversial, sensitive local story. He responds, “Because it’s news (and people will read it).”
That’s as true now as it was when that film was made.
WHAT THEY did was dumb, with a capital ‘D.’ These are two high-profile people who are anything but anonymous. The last thing they needed to do was take their relationship public let alone to a luxury hotel in Arizona. And this as half the country walks around with high-resolution cameras in its pockets. Did they not expect it was only a matter of time before pictures of them in compromising positions would surface?
Celebrities have long been involved in affairs … politicians, sports figures, musicians, actors, authors and media personalities.
And, sadly (apologies for the sexist reference) it seems that males are more often the ones who get them started, and once the affair becomes media fodder, they emerge comparatively unscathed while the woman is immediately slapped with a crimson ‘A.’
L’affaire de Vrabel-Russini is the latest example.
Mike will likely continue as head coach of the Patriots, a team he took to the Super Bowl in his first season with New England. The NFL will do, uhhh, nothing, and, in fairness, it’s unlikely there are any statutes against affairs in the league rule book … otherwise half the players would be suspended.
Meanwhile, Russini resigned from The Athletic presumably of her own volition and she’ll likely get another media job albeit after a bit of a sabbatical.
But, here’s what’s interesting.
Vrabel and Russini reacted differently after they were outed.
The Patriots’ coach figuratively threw himself on the mercy of the court, admitted he was seeking counseling and apologized to his family.
Russini emerged as a somewhat unlikeable person with the revelation she assessed her husband as “average” in a broadcast interview. In another she referred to him as “stupid” and in yet another segment allowed they were “average” together only “because he married me.”
Those comments were couched as “joking” but they resonated as coming from a mean-spirited woman consumed by ego once her affair with Vrabel became public.
You could get good odds on either of their marriages surviving.
But if I was Vrabel, I’d be wary of pursuing his relationship with Russini who’s already shown him who she is.
(Chuck Pollock, a Wellsville Sun and Olean Star senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@wnynet.net.)
