When a basketball coach steps onto the court for a big game, the cameras almost always find one face in the crowd: the spouse who has lived every win, every loss, and every late-night move to a new city. For Ryan Odom, the well-traveled college basketball coach now leading the University of Virginia, that face belongs to Lucia Odom. She is not just a name in a coach’s biography. She is a businesswoman, a mother, a daughter of two fascinating parents, and arguably the steadiest presence in one of college basketball’s most quietly compelling family stories. If you have only ever seen her clapping from the stands, you are missing the better half of the tale.
Who Is Lucia Odom?
Lucia Odom is best known publicly as the wife of Ryan Odom, the head men’s basketball coach at the University of Virginia. But reducing her to “the coach’s wife” undersells her considerably. Before she ever married into a basketball dynasty, she was Lucia Anne Depasquale, born on August 20, 1974, and raised as one of four daughters in a household that blended Irish heritage with American grit. She went on to attend Appalachian State University, build a long career as a boutique owner, and raise two sons while supporting a husband whose job pulled the family across the map more times than most people relocate in a lifetime. In other words, she is a person with her own identity, her own ambitions, and her own story that simply happens to overlap with a famous one.
Lucia Odom’s Early Life and Family Roots
Lucia’s roots are a genuine mix of two worlds, which probably explains a lot about her adaptability later in life. Her mother emigrated from Ireland, and her father was a North Carolina man with a colorful résumé, so Lucia grew up at the intersection of Old World tradition and Southern American culture. Being one of four sisters meant she was raised in a busy, full house where sharing, negotiating, and keeping a sense of humor were daily survival skills. Those early years in the Depasquale home laid the foundation for the warmth and resilience that friends and family consistently associate with her today. It is easy to imagine that a childhood spent among strong, independent women is part of why she has handled the chaos of coaching life so gracefully.
Her Father, Adrian Pasquale: Soldier, Farmer, and Athlete
Lucia’s father, Adrian Pasquale, lived the kind of life that sounds almost too full to fit into one biography. He served as a U.S. Army veteran, owned and worked a farm in the Little River area of North Carolina, and before all of that, he played basketball at North Carolina State. That last detail is a nice piece of foreshadowing, isn’t it? The man who would eventually become the grandfather of two basketball-playing boys was himself a college hoops player long before his daughter married into the sport. Adrian passed away on December 12, 2016, in Southern Pines at the age of 78, leaving behind a legacy of service, hard work, and athletic competitiveness that clearly threaded its way down through the generations. You can draw a fairly straight line from a former NC State player to a household where the game became the family business.
Her Mother, Roisin O’Rahilly: From Dublin to the Saddle
If Lucia inherited her toughness from her father’s military and farming background, she likely got her adventurous streak from her mother. Roisin O’Rahilly is a native of Dublin, Ireland, who left home at the age of 23 with little more than a love of horses and a willingness to chase it across an ocean. She landed in New York City first, where she worked as a secretary and even managed a limousine company, before eventually planting roots in North Carolina. What makes Roisin truly remarkable, though, is her lifelong devotion to equestrian eventing. Decades into her life, she was still competing in horse trials and completing serious riding milestones, the kind of pursuit that demands fearlessness well past the age when most people hang up their riding boots. A mother like that does not raise timid daughters, and Lucia’s comfort with constant change starts to make a lot more sense in that light.
Lucia’s Sisters: Maria McBrayer, Gina, and Christina
Lucia is one of four daughters, which means she grew up with three sisters: Maria McBrayer, Gina, and Christina. While these sisters keep relatively private lives compared to their high-profile brother-in-law, their existence tells you something important about Lucia. She came from a family of women who stuck together, a sisterhood that almost certainly served as a built-in support system during the years when Ryan’s career kept the family on the move. Anyone who has moved repeatedly for a spouse’s job knows how isolating it can be, and having a tight web of sisters to lean on is the kind of quiet advantage that does not show up in box scores but matters enormously in real life. The Depasquale sisters represent the steady, behind-the-scenes network that helped keep Lucia grounded through every coaching change.
How Lucia and Ryan Odom Met
The story of how Lucia and Ryan Odom came together is one she has spoken about warmly in recent interviews, including a podcast appearance where she opened up about life as a coach’s wife and the early days of their relationship. Ryan, born on July 11, 1974, is the son of legendary coach Dave Odom, so basketball was practically stitched into his DNA from childhood. When he and Lucia found each other, she was marrying into not just a man but an entire coaching lineage, a reality that comes with both privileges and pressures. Their relationship was built on a shared willingness to commit to a demanding life, and the fact that it has endured through so many career stops speaks to a partnership grounded in genuine mutual respect. They have made the kind of team that works best when nobody is keeping score of who sacrificed what.
A Faith That Brought Them Together
One of the more personal details about the Odom marriage involves faith. Ryan was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition, but when he married Lucia, he converted to her Catholic faith. That is no small thing. Choosing to adopt your partner’s religion signals a depth of commitment and a willingness to build a shared spiritual foundation rather than simply coexisting in separate traditions. For the Odoms, faith has clearly been more than a background detail; it has been a stabilizing force during a career that offers very little stability. In a profession defined by pressure, public criticism, and the constant uncertainty of the next job, a shared belief system has given the family something dependable to hold onto. It is one of those private cornerstones that outsiders rarely see but that quietly holds everything together.
Life as a Coach’s Wife
Let’s be honest about what being a coaching spouse actually involves, because Lucia has lived the full version of it. The job means uprooting your life every few years, packing up a household, enrolling kids in new schools, finding new doctors and friends and routines, and doing most of that logistical heavy lifting while your partner is consumed by recruiting, film study, and a relentless game schedule. Lucia has navigated all of it, from job to job, while also being the emotional anchor for a family that hears plenty of criticism from fans and media when results do not go their way. She has talked candidly about the challenges of that lifestyle, and what comes through is not resentment but a kind of seasoned acceptance. She understood the deal, embraced the chaos, and made the moving truck feel like an adventure rather than a burden. That mindset is rarer and more valuable than people realize.
Monkee’s of the Pines: Lucia the Entrepreneur
Here is where Lucia’s story stops being only about basketball. For sixteen years, she built and ran a women’s clothing boutique called Monkee’s, operating a location known as Monkee’s of the Pines. This was not a casual hobby. She was a genuine businesswoman, flying around the country for trade shows, curating inventory, managing staff, and growing a brand in the competitive world of women’s fashion retail. Running a boutique for that long, while also raising two children and supporting a coaching career, is a staggering balancing act. Eventually she made the difficult decision to sell the business just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, a move that, in hindsight, looks remarkably well-timed. Her entrepreneurial chapter is a reminder that she has always carried her own professional identity, separate from the gymnasium and the scoreboard. She was a CEO in her own right long before her husband became a headline.
Raising Connor and Owen Odom
Lucia and Ryan are the parents of two sons, Connor Odom and Owen Odom. Raising children inside the coaching world is its own unique challenge, since the kids essentially grow up in locker rooms, on team buses, and in the shadow of their father’s high-pressure profession. For the Odom boys, basketball was never far away, and in Connor’s case it became a defining part of his own journey. Lucia has been the consistent home presence through all of it, the parent who managed school transitions and family routines as the family bounced between coaching stops. Both boys grew up understanding the demands of the sport intimately, having seen firsthand the work, the travel, and the emotional swings that come with a life in college athletics. Owen, the younger of the two, has come of age watching his father rise to one of the most prestigious jobs in the sport.
Connor Odom’s Courageous Journey
The story of Connor Odom deserves its own spotlight because of how openly the family has handled a deeply personal struggle. Connor was diagnosed with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, and rather than hiding it, the Odom family chose transparency. Connor went on to play college basketball for his father at both Utah State and VCU, and in 2023 he received the Perry Wallace Most Courageous Award in recognition of his willingness to speak publicly about his battle with OCD. An ESPN feature back in 2019 chronicled his journey, helping turn a private hardship into a source of inspiration for others facing mental health challenges. For Lucia, watching her son confront something so difficult and then use his platform to help others must have been an enormous source of pride. The way the family rallied around Connor says a great deal about the values Lucia helped instill in her household.
Owen Odom: The Younger Son
Owen Odom, the couple’s younger son, has had the experience of growing up alongside his father’s most significant career ascent. As Ryan moved from UMBC to Utah State to VCU and finally to the University of Virginia, Owen was right there for the journey, attending games and rooting for a team his father leads. Lucia has mentioned that she now has both a husband and a son to cheer for in Charlottesville, which paints a sweet picture of a family fully invested in the program together. While Owen keeps a lower profile than his older brother, he represents the next chapter of the Odom family’s deep connection to the game. Growing up in that environment, surrounded by competition and high standards, tends to leave a lasting mark, and it will be interesting to watch where his own path leads.
Ryan Odom’s Career and Why Lucia’s Role Matters
To fully appreciate Lucia’s contribution, it helps to understand the scale of her husband’s career. Ryan Odom first burst into national consciousness in 2018 when his UMBC team became the first ever No. 16 seed to defeat a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, stunning Virginia in one of the greatest upsets in sports history. He later coached at Utah State and VCU, winning consistently and building a reputation as one of the sharpest minds in the college game, before being named Virginia’s head coach in 2025. In his first season there, he guided the Cavaliers to a 30-win campaign and earned national coach of the year consideration. Behind every one of those moves was a family that had to be repacked, replanted, and re-rooted, and Lucia was the one orchestrating that domestic machinery. Coaches will tell you that you cannot do this job without a partner who can carry the home front, and Lucia has carried it through every single stop.
Lucia Odom Steps Into the Spotlight
For most of her husband’s career, Lucia stayed comfortably out of the public eye, content to support from the background. More recently, though, she has begun sharing her own perspective, including a delightful podcast appearance in 2026 where she discussed her experiences as a coach’s wife, how she and Ryan met, and her favorite memories as a basketball fan. Hearing her tell her own story is refreshing precisely because it reframes the entire narrative. The Odom success story is not a solo act; it is a partnership, and Lucia is finally getting a bit of the recognition she has long deserved. As Virginia basketball enters a new era under her husband, Lucia Odom stands as proof that the people behind the bench often matter just as much as the person on it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Lucia Odom?
Lucia Odom is the wife of Ryan Odom, the head men’s basketball coach at the University of Virginia. Born Lucia Anne Depasquale, she is a former boutique owner who ran a women’s clothing store called Monkee’s for sixteen years and has supported her husband through numerous coaching stops while raising their two sons.
Who are Lucia Odom’s parents?
Lucia’s father was Adrian Pasquale, a U.S. Army veteran, North Carolina farm owner, and former North Carolina State basketball player who passed away in 2016. Her mother is Roisin O’Rahilly, a Dublin native who became a dedicated equestrian and competitive eventing rider after emigrating from Ireland.
Does Lucia Odom have any siblings?
Yes. Lucia is one of four daughters and has three sisters: Maria McBrayer, Gina, and Christina. The sisters have largely kept private lives, but they form the close-knit family network that helped support Lucia throughout her husband’s nomadic coaching career.
How many children do Lucia and Ryan Odom have?
Lucia and Ryan Odom have two sons, Connor Odom and Owen Odom. Connor played college basketball for his father at Utah State and VCU and has been publicly recognized for his courage in discussing his struggle with severe OCD, while Owen is the younger of the two boys.
What did Lucia Odom do for a living?
Lucia spent sixteen years building and running a women’s clothing boutique called Monkee’s, operating a location known as Monkee’s of the Pines. She traveled the country for trade shows before selling the business shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Conclusion
Lucia Odom is far more than a footnote in Ryan Odom’s coaching biography. She is the product of a remarkable family, an Irish-born equestrian mother and a soldier-farmer-athlete father, and she carried that blend of grit and adventurousness into a life that demanded both in equal measure. She built her own business, raised two sons through constant upheaval, supported a son’s brave public battle with OCD, and kept a coaching family steady through more relocations than most of us could stomach. As her husband settles into one of the most prestigious jobs in college basketball, Lucia’s quiet strength stands out as the foundation beneath the success. The next time the cameras pan to the stands at a Virginia game, remember that the woman cheering has a story every bit as compelling as the one unfolding on the court.
