The apparent affair between New England Patriots Coach Mike Vrabel and NFL reporter Diana Russini has been one of the most talked-about news stories in sports this year. But is Vrabel getting off easy compared to Black coaches who have been fired for other transgressions in recent years?
In early April, Page Six published photos of Vrabel and Russini, who are both married, spending time together at a luxury resort. Everything since then has been a social media whirlwind: an endless stream of video clips and tweets of Russini joking about her marriage and disparaging her husband; reports of Russini claiming she was at the resort while vacationing with friends, which went uncorroborated by people in her circle; and Russini eventually resigning from her job at The Athletic, claiming that she stands by her reporting, but that she wanted to quell all of the gossip. But on Vrabel’s side, it’s been relatively quiet: he stayed silent for several weeks and didn’t appear publicly until a pre-NFL Draft press conference, where he spoke vaguely about the controversy. And perhaps most notably, at least for now, he’s been able to keep his job as the Pats’ head coach.
Vrabel seems to have a lesser level of accountability than other Black coaches who have been embroiled in scandal. Ime Udoka, former coach of the Boston Celtics, was suspended by the team in September 2022 for “multiple policy violations” regarding an inappropriate relationship with a woman in the organization (the interim coach during his suspension, then-assistant Joe Mazulla, later became his permanent replacement). This past December, Sherrone Moore was ousted from his position as head coach for the University of Michigan for having an inappropriate relationship with a staff member; that woman, Paige Shiver, gave a tearful interview to Good Morning America, where she revealed that Moore had gotten her pregnant. (Moore is still married to his wife of 10-plus years. Ime Udoka was dating actress Nia Long at the time of his scandal; they have since ended their relationship.)
The key difference between Vrabel’s affair and these Black coaches is that they were punished for either having inappropriate relationships with women who were employed by their organizations or for harassing someone who was being contracted by their organization. These are situations where the coaches were arguably in positions of power compared to the women they were involved with, violating policies that seem common at any company. These firings are protective measures for those institutions just as much as they are moral stances against the coaches’ behavior. While Vrabel’s leadership position as a head coach in the NFL does bring up ethical questions regarding the legitimacy of Russini’s reporting, it doesn’t have the same power dynamic that the other three coaches had.
But that doesn’t mean that Vrabel hasn’t gotten off easy. Sports and culture commentator Bomani Jones pointed out that while he and Russini had different consequences since they answer to different employers, the press was soft on him. “What I found somewhat stunning — well, not really stunning, because I’ve been doing this job for a while – [is that] people allowed for this. He got up there, and talked for all that time, but never said what it is that he was talking about,” Jones said on his show, “The Right Time.” He says he wished that someone in the press corp acted oblivious to the situation and asked what was going on. “…If you want to raise the question about whether he had to answer for it, that’s for you. I think it was impossible for him not to. But once he did, it’s time to make this difficult!”
With photos of Vrabel and Russini continuing to leak, we still likely haven’t seen the end of this situation just yet. But comparing his controversy to the disgraced Black coaches in recent years doesn’t fly.
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