Becky Petrino is the wife of Bobby Petrino, the longtime college football coach who has led programs including Louisville, Arkansas, and Western Kentucky over a career spanning multiple decades. Becky and Bobby met while both attended Carroll College and married on July 20, 1985, building a family together through the many relocations that have come with his coaching career, including the widely publicized personal scandal that led to his 2012 firing from Arkansas. This article gathers the verified facts about Becky Petrino, her marriage to Bobby, and the family they have raised across his decades in college football.
Becky Petrino: Quick Bio Table
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Becky Petrino |
| Spouse | Bobby Petrino, college football coach |
| Married | July 20, 1985 |
| Children | Nick, Kelsey, Katie, and Bobby Jr. |
| Public Profile | Low; has maintained privacy, particularly since 2012 |
| Known For | Being Bobby Petrino’s wife |
Meeting at Carroll College
Becky Petrino met her future husband, Bobby, while both were students at Carroll College, a small liberal arts institution in Montana where Bobby played quarterback for the football team before beginning his own long coaching career. This kind of college sweetheart beginning, meeting a future spouse during their undergraduate years well before either partner’s eventual career path had fully taken shape, gave Becky and Bobby’s relationship a foundation built during a formative period in both of their lives.
The couple married on July 20, 1985, a union that would go on to last through decades of Bobby’s demanding coaching career, one defined by frequent moves between coaching positions at various college programs and, for a period, in the National Football League. This kind of marriage, beginning years before either partner could have anticipated the specific path Bobby’s coaching career would eventually take, reflects a relationship built on a foundation established well before the pressures and public scrutiny that come with high profile college football coaching positions.
Marrying a future spouse during college, before either partner’s eventual career has taken shape, often creates a particularly durable relationship foundation, since both partners typically experience their subsequent career developments and life changes together from a relatively early stage. For Becky and Bobby, this meant building their marriage and eventually their family through the many professional transitions that would come to define Bobby’s coaching career over the following decades.
A Family Shaped by Frequent Moves
Becky and Bobby Petrino have four children together: sons Nick and Bobby Jr., and daughters Kelsey and Katie, a family that has navigated numerous relocations throughout the children’s upbringing as Bobby’s coaching career took the family to various college programs and, for a period, the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons. Their daughter has described the family’s especially strong closeness as stemming directly from this pattern of frequent moves, noting that having to repeatedly adjust to new homes and communities meant the Petrino children relied heavily on each other throughout their childhoods.
Raising four children while repeatedly relocating for a demanding coaching career requires significant family coordination and resilience, particularly for the children themselves, who would have had to adjust to new schools, friendships, and communities multiple times throughout their upbringing. This kind of itinerant lifestyle, common among the families of college football coaches whose careers often involve moving between programs every few years, places particular demands on a family’s ability to maintain stability and closeness despite constant geographic change.
Families that relocate frequently because of a parent’s coaching career often develop an unusually tight knit family dynamic precisely because of these repeated transitions, since children in this situation typically learn to depend on their immediate family unit for consistency even as their external surroundings change repeatedly throughout childhood. For the Petrino children, this pattern appears to have produced exactly this kind of close family bond, one their own daughter has directly credited to the family’s shared experience of frequent relocation.
Nick and Kelsey both graduated from the University of Louisville, where Bobby coached for two separate stints during his career, while Katie also attended Louisville and competed on the university’s golf team, suggesting the family maintained a particular connection to that program across multiple members of the Petrino children. Kelsey has since become a grandmother, extending the Petrino family into a new generation even as Bobby’s coaching career has continued.
Bobby Jr. Coming Out
In 2015, the Petrinos’ son Bobby Jr. publicly came out as gay, a significant personal moment that received attention in part because of his father’s prominent profile within college football, a sport not always associated with public acceptance of LGBTQ family members. Bobby Petrino reportedly responded to his son with immediate and unequivocal support, telling him, “I am so proud of you and love you so much,” a response that reflects the close family bond the Petrino children have described as central to their upbringing.
This kind of supportive parental response, particularly from a father whose professional world often intersects with a traditionally conservative sports culture, represents a meaningful family moment that extended beyond the Petrinos’ private life into broader conversations about acceptance within college athletics. Becky’s own role in the family’s response to this moment has not been extensively documented in available public reporting, though the family’s broader description of their closeness suggests a similarly supportive reaction on her part.
Weathering the 2012 Arkansas Scandal
Becky Petrino’s marriage faced its most publicly documented challenge in April 2012, when Bobby was involved in a motorcycle accident near Fayetteville, Arkansas, that revealed he had been carrying a passenger, Jessica Dorrell, a former Arkansas volleyball player whom he had helped hire onto his coaching staff despite an undisclosed personal relationship between them. The incident and subsequent investigation led to Bobby’s firing from Arkansas just days later, ending his tenure at the program amid a scandal that received extensive national sports media coverage.
Bobby later spoke about the difficult conversation that followed with Becky, reflecting on the moment he had to confront her about the affair, stating, “Looking at the look in her eyes, how could I possibly do something like this, to hurt her?” This kind of public reckoning with infidelity, playing out amid intense national media attention given Bobby’s high profile coaching position, placed significant strain on the marriage during a period that would have been difficult for any couple, let alone one navigating it under such public scrutiny.
Despite the scandal and the public humiliation it brought, Becky and Bobby remained together, undergoing counseling as they worked through the aftermath of his affair, a decision that ultimately preserved their marriage even as it concluded his time at Arkansas and significantly altered the trajectory of his coaching career. This kind of choice, to work through infidelity rather than divorce, particularly following such a publicly documented scandal, reflects a deeply personal decision that the couple has largely kept private beyond Bobby’s own limited public comments on the matter.
Bobby Petrino’s Coaching Career for Context
To understand the professional environment that shaped much of Becky’s family life, it helps to understand her husband’s extensive coaching career. Bobby Petrino built a career that included head coaching positions at Louisville across two separate stints, Arkansas, Western Kentucky, and a brief and unsuccessful tenure with the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, a position he left abruptly partway through his first season, a decision that drew significant criticism at the time.
This pattern of frequent coaching changes, moving between numerous programs and even levels of football over the course of his career, meant Becky and the family experienced considerably more relocation than families connected to coaches who remain at a single program for the bulk of their careers. Bobby’s coaching record includes considerable success at the college level, particularly during his stints at Louisville, even as his career has also been marked by the kind of controversy that followed the 2012 Arkansas scandal.
After leaving Arkansas, Bobby went on to coach at Western Kentucky before returning to Louisville for a second stint, a path that again required Becky and the family to adjust to new communities following the upheaval of his very public firing. Rebuilding a coaching career after a scandal of that magnitude requires considerable professional resilience, and the family’s willingness to relocate once again in support of Bobby’s continued coaching ambitions reflects the same kind of enduring partnership that has defined Becky and Bobby’s marriage since their earliest years together at Carroll College.
Coaching families who experience this kind of public professional setback followed by a subsequent career rebuilding effort often describe the experience as uniquely challenging, since it requires navigating both the practical demands of relocation and the lingering public association with a past controversy, even at a new program with an entirely different coaching staff and community. For Becky, supporting her husband through this particular chapter of his career would have meant managing both the ordinary demands of another family move and the less ordinary challenge of doing so under the shadow of a nationally publicized scandal.
Why People Search for Becky Petrino
Public interest in Becky Petrino comes almost entirely from her marriage to Bobby Petrino, a longtime and often controversial figure within college football coaching circles. Fans and observers of college football, particularly those familiar with the 2012 Arkansas scandal, occasionally search for information about Becky as part of understanding how the coach’s personal life and marriage weathered one of the more publicly documented scandals in recent college football history.
This kind of interest typically increases whenever Bobby Petrino’s coaching career or past controversies resurface in sports media coverage, since profiles revisiting his career frequently include background on his marriage and family as part of the broader story.
Conclusion
Becky Petrino is the wife of college football coach Bobby Petrino, having married him in 1985 after the two met at Carroll College, and together they raised four children through the many relocations his coaching career required. Despite weathering a highly publicized scandal in 2012 that cost Bobby his job at Arkansas, Becky and Bobby have remained married, with their family consistently describing a close and resilient bond built through decades of shared experience.
Frequently Asked Questions About Becky Petrino
Who is Becky Petrino?
Becky Petrino is the wife of longtime college football coach Bobby Petrino.
When did Becky and Bobby Petrino get married?
They married on July 20, 1985, after meeting at Carroll College.
Do Becky and Bobby Petrino have children?
Yes. They have four children: Nick, Kelsey, Katie, and Bobby Jr.
What happened between Becky and Bobby Petrino in 2012?
Bobby was involved in a motorcycle accident that revealed an affair with a staff member, leading to his firing from Arkansas, though he and Becky remained married after undergoing counseling.
What is Bobby Petrino known for?
He is known for his college football coaching career, including stints at Louisville, Arkansas, and Western Kentucky.
