Becky Petrino is best known as the wife of Bobby Petrino, the college football coach who has led programmes including the University of Arkansas and the University of Louisville. Becky met Bobby while they were both students at Carroll College in Montana, and the couple married on 20 July 1985, going on to raise four children together before their marriage was tested publicly by a widely reported 2012 scandal. This article sets out the verified facts about her marriage, her family, and the difficult period the couple navigated together.
Quick Bio Table
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full name | Becky Petrino |
| Husband | Bobby Petrino, college football coach |
| Met | Carroll College, Montana |
| Marriage | 20 July 1985 |
| Children | Nick, Kelsey, Katie, and Bobby Jr. |
| Notable event | Husband’s publicised 2012 scandal at Arkansas |
Who Is Becky Petrino?
Becky Petrino is the wife of Bobby Petrino, a college football coach whose career has included head coaching positions at the University of Louisville, the University of Arkansas, and other programmes across a lengthy coaching career. Becky and Bobby met as students at Carroll College in Montana and married on 20 July 1985, beginning a marriage that has now spanned several decades and included the raising of four children together.
Their marriage was tested significantly in 2012, when Bobby’s affair with a member of his coaching staff at Arkansas became public following a motorcycle accident, a scandal that led to his firing and brought considerable media scrutiny to the family. Despite this difficult chapter, Becky and Bobby have remained married in the years since.
Meeting at Carroll College and Building a Family
Becky and Bobby’s relationship began while they were both students at Carroll College in Montana, a small liberal arts institution where their shared college experience laid the foundation for a marriage that would eventually span the many career moves and coaching positions that came to define Bobby’s professional life. The couple married on 20 July 1985, and went on to have four children: sons Nick and Bobby Jr., and daughters Kelsey and Katie.
Nick, the eldest, graduated from the University of Louisville, as did Kelsey, who has since had a daughter of her own named Anissa. Katie attended the University of Louisville as well, competing on the university’s women’s golf team, while Bobby Jr., the youngest, also attended Louisville and publicly came out as gay in 2015.
A Family Shaped by a Coaching Career’s Many Moves
Raising four children across the many coaching positions and program changes that defined Bobby’s career would have required Becky to manage considerable family logistics, relocating and adapting to new communities repeatedly as her husband’s coaching career progressed through various universities and programmes.
The 2012 Scandal at Arkansas
On 1 April 2012, Bobby Petrino crashed his motorcycle while riding with Jessica Dorrell, a staff member the Arkansas football program had hired just days earlier as a student-athlete development coordinator. Bobby initially told police and media that he had been riding alone, before later admitting to an affair with Dorrell, a revelation that led athletic director Jeff Long to launch an investigation, which found that Bobby had given Dorrell a twenty-thousand-dollar cash gift and that their relationship had reportedly been an open secret within the football office. Bobby was fired from his position at Arkansas on 10 April 2012, just over a week after the accident.
Becky largely stayed out of public comment throughout the scandal, a choice that reflected both the private nature of the family’s difficulty and the intense media scrutiny already surrounding the situation. Bleacher Report, covering the family’s experience at the time, characterised Becky as having stood by her husband through years of criticism connected to his coaching career, only to then face public humiliation through his admitted infidelity.
Bobby Petrino: A Brief Background
To understand Becky’s connection to public attention, it helps to know a little about her husband. Bobby Petrino built his coaching career across several major college football programmes, including multiple stints at the University of Louisville, where several of the couple’s children also attended university.
Why People Search for Becky Petrino
Interest in Becky Petrino typically arises among college football fans researching Bobby Petrino’s personal history, particularly following the extensive media coverage his 2012 scandal received at the time and in subsequent retrospectives on his coaching career. Because Becky herself largely avoided public comment throughout the scandal and its aftermath, searches about her tend to focus on confirming basic facts about the marriage, their children, and how the family navigated the difficult period rather than uncovering statements directly from her.
Rebuilding Trust After Public Humiliation
Bobby later spoke in an interview with ESPN about the aftermath of the scandal, describing how seeing the look in Becky’s eyes forced him to confront the full weight of what he had done, and the couple has stated that they pursued counselling together as they worked to rebuild their marriage following the public revelations. This kind of candid acknowledgment from Bobby regarding the personal toll of his actions on Becky offers a rare, direct glimpse into how the couple approached repairing their marriage after such a publicly documented breach of trust.
Understanding this process, choosing counselling and remaining together despite the scandal’s intense public nature, reflects a decision that stands in contrast to how many marriages affected by similarly publicised infidelity ultimately conclude, illustrating the particular resilience the Petrino marriage has demonstrated in the years since.
A Coaching Career That Continued Despite the Scandal
Bobby Petrino’s coaching career continued in the years following his 2012 firing from Arkansas, including a subsequent return to coach at Arkansas again in an interim capacity, according to more recent coverage of his career. Becky’s own role throughout these subsequent career developments has remained largely private, consistent with the pattern established during the original 2012 scandal, when she chose not to engage extensively with media coverage of the family’s difficulties.
This continued privacy, even as Bobby’s coaching career has continued to generate periodic media attention, reflects a consistent choice by Becky to keep her own perspective and experience largely out of public documentation, even as the broader Petrino family story has remained a recurring subject of sports media coverage.
Raising Four Children Amid Public Scrutiny
Becky’s role raising Nick, Kelsey, Katie, and Bobby Jr. would have required considerable strength during the period surrounding the 2012 scandal, since the children themselves would have faced their own share of public attention and difficult conversations connected to their father’s very publicly reported infidelity. This kind of family-wide impact, where children of a public figure must navigate their own social and emotional response to a parent’s publicised personal failings, illustrates how a scandal involving one spouse inevitably extends its impact across an entire family rather than remaining confined to the two people most directly involved.
Understanding this broader family context helps frame Becky’s own experience during 2012 not only as that of a wife processing her husband’s betrayal, but as a mother helping guide her children through a genuinely difficult and very public family crisis.
A Marriage Tested by Both Professional and Personal Pressure
The Petrino family’s experience illustrates the particular strain that can accompany a career built around the intense public scrutiny of major college football coaching, where professional criticism and personal difficulty can become intertwined in ways that place considerable pressure on a marriage. Bleacher Report’s own characterisation of Becky as having endured years of criticism connected to her husband’s coaching career, only to then face the additional difficulty of his publicised affair, reflects the compounding nature of the pressures placed on the spouses of high-profile coaches.
This context helps explain why Becky and Bobby’s decision to remain married and pursue counselling following the 2012 scandal has been noted specifically within sports media coverage, since it reflects a marriage that has navigated both the ordinary pressures of a demanding coaching career and the extraordinary strain of a very public personal crisis.
Conclusion
Becky Petrino’s story is defined by her marriage to Bobby Petrino, beginning with their meeting at Carroll College and their 1985 wedding, through the raising of their four children, and the considerable test their marriage faced during the widely publicised 2012 scandal at Arkansas. Her decision to remain largely private throughout that difficult period, combined with the couple’s reported efforts at counselling and reconciliation, reflects a marriage that has endured significant public strain.
Her story illustrates the particular resilience required of the spouses of public figures whose personal failings become subject to national media coverage, and the private work of rebuilding trust that such circumstances demand.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Becky Petrino?
Becky Petrino is the wife of college football coach Bobby Petrino.
When did Becky Petrino marry Bobby Petrino?
The couple married on 20 July 1985, after meeting as students at Carroll College in Montana.
How many children do Becky Petrino and Bobby Petrino have?
They have four children: Nick, Kelsey, Katie, and Bobby Jr.
What happened in the 2012 Bobby Petrino scandal?
Bobby was fired from Arkansas after admitting to an affair with a staff member following a motorcycle accident that made the relationship public.
Are Becky Petrino and Bobby Petrino still married?
Yes, the couple has remained married, with Bobby stating they pursued counselling following the 2012 scandal.
