Gregg Popovich coached the San Antonio Spurs from 1996 to 2025, winning a league-record 1,390 regular-season games, 170 postseason games and five NBA championships.
For four of those championships and quite a few of the other victories, one of Popovich’s assistant coaches was his new wife’s ex-husband.
Popovich, 77, married Mary Barth Budenholzer on Sept. 16, the Bexar County, Texas, clerk’s office has confirmed.
Budenholzer is a 61-year-old native of Corpus Christi, according to multiple media outlets, and was once married to Mike Budenholzer, who was a Spurs assistant coach under Popovich from 1996 to 2013. He went on to become the head coach of the Atlanta Hawks, Milwaukee Bucks and Phoenix Suns, winning an NBA championship with the Bucks in 2021.
The Budenholzers are said to share four children and to have divorced in 2016.
Popovich was married to Erin Popovich for four decades until her 2018 death at age 67. They have two children and multiple grandchildren.
On Nov. 2, 2024, Popovich suffered a stroke before a game at Frost Bank Center, the Spurs’ home arena. Assistant coach Mitch Johnson was named interim coach. That title became permanent on May 2, 2025, when Popovich stepped down after 29 years as San Antonio’s coach.
A member of the Spurs’ front office since 1994, Popovich currently serves as the team’s president of basketball operations. He was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023.
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