Dianna Marie Russini (born February 11, 1983) is an American sports journalist who currently works as an NFL host, reporter, insider, and analyst for

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

on NFL Countdown and ''

NFL Live ''NFL Live'' (stylized as ''NFL Live presented by Autotrader'' for sponsorship reasons) is an American National Football League (NFL) studio show, currently airing Monday through Friday at 3:00 p.m ET on sports cable channel ESPN. Formerly know ...

''. Russini joined ESPN and became a '' SportsCenter'' anchor in July 2015. Prior to being hired by ESPN, she worked as the main sports anchor for

WRC-TV WRC-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Washington, D.C., airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Class A Telemundo outlet WZDC-CD (channel 44 ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

Born in

The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

, Russini grew up in

Norwood, New Jersey Norwood is a borough in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States census, the borough's population was 5,711,Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan is a comprehensive four-year public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades from the suburban communities of Harrington Park, Northvale, Norwood and Old Tappan in Berge ...

, where she was All State in soccer, basketball, softball and track. She played soccer for four seasons at George Mason University. In total, she scored seven goals and recorded one assist in 51 appearances for George Mason. At the time she joined the network, she was the youngest reporter hired at WNBC in New York City as a reporter. She moved to sports soon after moving to Seattle as a reporter and anchor for CSN Northwest, having also worked for News 12 Westchester and

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

stations

WNBC WNBC (channel 4) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Linden, New Jersey–licensed Telemundo stati ...

, and

WVIT WVIT (channel 30) is a television station licensed to New Britain, Connecticut, United States, broadcasting NBC programming to the Hartford–New Haven market. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations divisio ...

. In July 2015, Russini joined ESPN after Disney executives saw her sportscast in DC. She served as a SportsCenter anchor and provided sideline reporting, with Tom Luginbill, for ESPN’s XFL Saturday afternoon games.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Russini, Dianna 1983 births Living people American people of Italian descent American sports journalists American women television journalists ESPN people American women's soccer players Soccer players from New York (state) Women's association football forwards George Mason Patriots women's soccer players National Football League announcers Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan alumni People from Norwood, New Jersey People from the Bronx Sports commentators XFL (2020) broadcasters 21st-century American journalists 21st-century American women