Every Sunday during football season, Howie Long breaks down the game from a Fox Sports studio, trading analysis with the ease of a man who spent thirteen seasons chasing quarterbacks as a Raiders defensive end. What doesn’t show up on camera is the person who’s been beside him since long before any of that started: his wife, Diane Addonizio.
Here’s the thing about Diane Addonizio — most articles about her treat her as a footnote to Howie’s story. She isn’t one. She’s a Villanova-educated attorney who built a life alongside a Hall of Famer, raised three sons who each found their own way into professional football, and did it while staying almost entirely out of the public eye. That last part wasn’t an accident. It was a choice, and it’s a big part of what makes her worth writing about.
Who Is Diane Addonizio?
Diane Addonizio grew up in New Jersey, in a family that valued education and steady, unglamorous work over public attention. She carried that outlook with her for the rest of her life. She’s a trained lawyer by education, though not one by ongoing profession — she stepped back from legal practice once her family started growing. She’s also, somewhat surprisingly, given how little she’s said publicly over the years, a published author.
None of that gets much attention next to “Howie Long’s wife.” But it’s the foundation on which the rest of her story sits.
How Did Diane Addonizio Meet Howie Long?
The Villanova Connection
This is the part competitor write-ups tend to skip past, and it shouldn’t be a footnote: Diane and Howie didn’t meet at a game or a party thrown in his honor. They met as students at Villanova University, where Howie was still a few years from being anyone’s idea of an NFL star. He played football there, boxed competitively enough to hold a regional collegiate title, and studied communications — the same degree that would later serve him well behind a broadcast desk <cite index=”3-1″>where he built a partnership marked by loyalty and shared responsibility with Diane over the following decades</cite>.
Diane, for her part, was working through her own coursework, entirely unrelated to football. They were both just students. That’s what makes the Villanova chapter worth telling in full — it’s not a celebrity meet-cute, it’s two people building a foundation before either of them knew what Howie’s career would turn into.
They married on June 27, 1982, not long before Howie’s NFL career began in earnest. It’s a detail that matters: Diane wasn’t marrying a football star. She was marrying a rookie, with everything that came after still unwritten.
What Was Life Like During Howie Long’s NFL Career?
Howie Long was drafted by the Oakland Raiders in the second round of the 1981 draft, and what followed was a run that eventually landed him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A short list of what Diane was living alongside during those years:
- Thirteen NFL seasons with the Raiders
- Eight Pro Bowl selections
- 91.5 career sacks
- A Super Bowl XVIII championship
- Multiple All-Pro selections and a share of the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year honor
That’s a career built on a level of physical punishment and travel that most marriages never have to absorb. Diane’s role during those years wasn’t public — she wasn’t the wife giving sideline interviews — but the stability she provided at home is the kind of thing that rarely makes a highlight reel and matters enormously anyway.
How Did the Long Family Transition to Life After Football?
Howie retired from playing and moved into broadcasting, joining Fox Sports as an NFL analyst in 1994. It’s a second career that’s now outlasted his playing days several times over, and it came with a different kind of public exposure — steadier, more visible, less physically brutal, but a full-time commitment all the same. He picked up a Sports Emmy in 1996 for his broadcast work and took on a handful of film roles along the way, including parts in Firestorm, Broken Arrow, 3000 Miles to Graceland, and That Thing You Do!
Diane’s legal training turned out to be useful here in a way that had nothing to do with courtroom work — reviewing contracts, thinking through the business side of a media career, the unglamorous groundwork that keeps a public-facing job running smoothly behind the scenes.
She also found her own creative outlet during this stretch. In 2000, she published He’s Just My Dad!, a book pairing photography with interviews of professional athletes talking about fatherhood. It’s a small but real data point against the idea that she simply disappeared into her husband’s career — she had her own project, her own voice, and her own curiosity about what family life looks like inside professional sports.
Who Are Howie Long and Diane Addonizio’s Sons?
This is where the “dynasty” framing actually earns itself. Diane and Howie raised three sons, and rather than one archetype repeating itself, each son found a distinct lane connected to the same sport.
| Family Member | Relationship to Diane | Notable Achievement | NFL Team(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Howie Long | Husband | Pro Football Hall of Fame, Super Bowl XVIII champion, 8x Pro Bowl | Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders |
| Chris Long | Son | Two-time Super Bowl champion, longtime starting defensive end | St. Louis Rams, New England Patriots, Philadelphia Eagles |
| Kyle Long | Son | Multiple Pro Bowl selections, later a football podcast host | Chicago Bears |
| Howie Long Jr. | Son | Works in football operations and sales for an NFL franchise | Las Vegas Raiders (front office) |
Chris Long: Defense First
Chris, the oldest, followed his father onto the defensive line and built a long, well-traveled career that included stops with the Rams, Patriots, and Eagles — and two Super Bowl rings along the way, one with each of the latter two teams.
Kyle Long: The Offensive Line
Kyle went the opposite direction on the field, protecting quarterbacks as an offensive guard rather than chasing them. He earned multiple Pro Bowl nods with the Chicago Bears before later moving into broadcasting and podcasting himself, following his father’s path into media once his playing days wound down.
Howie Long Jr.: Behind the Scenes
The youngest son didn’t put on pads professionally at all — he’s built a career on the business side of football, working in operations and sales for the Las Vegas Raiders. It’s arguably the most overlooked career of the three, and also the clearest sign that Diane and Howie raised their kids to find their own footing rather than pushing them all toward one identical script.
Diane Addonizio’s Life Today
Diane has kept a low public profile for decades, and by every indication, that’s exactly how she wants it. She isn’t active on social media, rarely gives interviews, and has let her husband and sons occupy the public-facing side of the family’s football connection. That’s not a lack of a story — it’s a deliberate one. In an environment where oversharing is often the default, choosing restraint for forty-plus years is its own kind of consistency.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Howie Long married to? Howie Long is married to Diane Addonizio. The two met as students at Villanova University and married on June 27, 1982.
How did Howie Long meet his wife? They met while both attending Villanova University, before Howie’s NFL career had started.
How many kids does Howie Long have? Howie and Diane have three sons: Chris, Kyle, and Howie Jr.
Is Diane Addonizio a lawyer? She earned a law degree from the University of Southern California School of Law and practiced briefly before stepping back to focus on raising her family.
Are Chris Long and Kyle Long related to Howie Long? Yes — both are Howie and Diane’s sons, and both played in the NFL.
What does Howie Long Jr. do? He works on the football operations and sales side for the Las Vegas Raiders rather than playing professionally.
Did Diane Addonizio write a book? Yes. In 2000, she published He’s Just My Dad!, featuring photography and interviews about professional athletes and fatherhood.
The Bottom Line
Diane Addonizio isn’t a supporting character in Howie Long’s story — she’s the person who was there before any of it started, at Villanova, before the Pro Bowls and the Super Bowl ring and the broadcast desk existed. She built her own education and career, wrote her own book, and raised three sons who each carved out a different relationship with the same sport. That the Long name means what it means in football today owes at least as much to her as it does to anyone wearing a helmet.
If you’re digging into the Long family for a fantasy football deep cut, a school project, or plain curiosity, Diane’s part of the story is the one worth starting with — it’s the piece that explains everything that came after.
