As much as former Browns head coach Sam Rutigliano would like to tell you that quarterback Brian Sipe was the key member of his 1980 Kardiac Kids, he can’t.
Sure, Sipe was important. He set several club passing records and became the first Brown in 15 years to win the NFL Most Valuable Player award as he led Cleveland to an 11-5 record and its first AFC Central title in nine years.
But there was one person who was even more important. Her name is Barbara Rutigliano, who has been Sam’s wife for 62 years.
While he was working 18-hour days putting together the Kardiac Kids upon his being hired shortly after the end of the end of the 1977 season, she was left to pack up and then sell the house in New Orleans, where they lived while her husband was wide receivers coach for the Saints under Hank Stram.
She was good at it. A coach’s wife has to be.
In reality, she can’t help but be good at it, for she gets a lot of practice.
“Barbara and I moved 19 times, she sold 13 houses and the kids attended 23 different schools during my coaching career,” Rutigliano said yesterday from his home in the Cleveland suburb of Waite Hill, where they have lived since his days with the Browns.
Barbara and the couple’s three children didn’t arrive in Cleveland to join Sam for six months, until the summer of 1978. Rutigliano had a meet-and-greet with them and then left quickly as training camp began.
Do you see the pattern here?
Any successful coach – any successful man in any walk of life, really – is only as good as the woman who stands selflessly behind him through thick and thin, in good times and in bad, and in sickness and in health.
This fact should never be forgotten, especially on a day like today, Valentine’s Day.
Rutigliano knows how lucky he has been – how lucky he still is – to have a lifelong assistant coach who knows just what to do, just when to do it and just how to do it back at the ranch so he could concentrate on what he needed to do with the teams he has coached.
“Divorce was never an option,” Rutigliano said. “Murder? Maybe. But never divorce.”
If there had been murder – or even divorce – then there’s no doubt the court would have sided with Barbara, who never considered either option
And as for the “marriage” between Rutigliano and Sipe? It lasted only six years, until the quarterback ran away with another suitor – the USFL and the big money being offered by owner Donald Trump of New Jersey Generals.
That tells you everything you need to know.
Happy Valentine’s Day, ladies. And for the men, thank your lucky stars not just today, but every day.
By Steve King
