Jen Rahne, wife of ODU football’s head coach, speaks on life as a coach’s wife

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WAVY) — Mobility is a great skill for a quarterback to have on a football field. It’s also helpful when you’re a coach’s wife.

Jen Rahne and her husband Ricky met at Cornell in 1998. Since then, they’ve been inseparable. Kind of.

She stayed and worked in Washington D.C. after college as a civil engineer while Ricky climbed the coaching ladder with stops in Massachusetts, New York, Kansas and Pennsylvania along the way to Norfolk. 

“I told him I wasn’t moving without a ring,” Jen said. 

The ring came in 2007. Jen and Ricky were engaged and started a family soon after.

They now have two sons, Ryder and Jake.

“She’s the best,” Ricky said. “She’s the toughest and smartest person I know. The fact that she’s kind of sacrificed some of her dreams in order to allow me to chase mine is pretty special.”

Ricky is in his first season as Monarch’s head coach. The team was 1-6 at one point of the season but has since reeled off five wins in a row and became bowl eligible for the second time in program history after a regular-season finale win against Charlotte.

“I have to give credit to Ricky’s mom, Deb. We were 1-6 and she said ‘we’re going to win out and go to a bowl game’ and I looked at her and said ‘you’re right we are.’ I looked at the schedule and I knew we were going to win out,” Jen said. 

Ricky and Jen are building lots of memories together in Hampton Roads and one of the first ones was ODU’s first win of the season against Hampton. Ricky’s first win as a head coach.

“I paced the whole game. Just paced. I kind of haven’t changed. I still do that. Going down on that field afterwards and seeing how excited the players were and how excited he was, my boys tackled him. It was so fun. I will never forget it.”