Tyna Robertson: What Happened to Kennedy Urlacher’s Mother

Tyna Robertson, also known later as Tyna Karageorge, is known to the public mainly as the mother of Kennedy Urlacher, a college football safety who played for Notre Dame and then moved to USC. Kennedy’s father is Brian Urlacher, the former Chicago Bears linebacker who was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018.

For many years, Tyna’s name appeared in news reports not because of football, but because of court cases. There was a paternity case when Kennedy was a baby, a long custody arrangement, a tragedy in her home in late 2016, and then a large defamation lawsuit in 2018. Since then, she has stayed out of public view, and very little confirmed information about her present life has been published.

Who Is Tyna Robertson?

Tyna Robertson is an American woman whose public story begins in the early 2000s, when she was in a relationship with Brian Urlacher. Urlacher was at the peak of his career at that time. He played his whole 13 season NFL career with the Chicago Bears, was named Defensive Player of the Year in 2005, and became one of the most recognised players in the league.

Tyna herself was not a public figure before that relationship. Reports from that period say she had already been mentioned in the media in connection with a separate legal claim involving the dancer Michael Flatley. That claim was dismissed, and a later court judgment went against her. Those early reports are part of the reason her name was known to Chicago reporters when the Urlacher case began, but they are not the main part of her story as a mother.

It is important to be clear about what is not known. Her exact birth date and birthplace have not been confirmed in strong public sources. Different low quality websites give different years, and none of those years should be treated as fact. She has not given regular interviews, she does not run a public social media profile that can be verified, and she has never written a book or appeared in a documentary about her life. Almost everything that can be checked comes from court reporting and from sports coverage of her son.

Kennedy’s Birth and the Paternity Case

Kennedy Lee Urlacher was born on 20 May 2005. He grew up in Arizona, in the Queen Creek and Chandler area, and went to Casteel High School before moving to Chandler High School after his first year. As a young player he was already highly rated, and he later committed to the University of Notre Dame.

In June 2005, only weeks after Kennedy was born, Brian Urlacher filed a court case to establish paternity. Genetic testing confirmed that he was Kennedy’s father. After that result, Kennedy was placed in the joint custody of both parents. That legal step is recorded in Wikipedia’s account of Kennedy’s life and in many sports reports since then, and it set the pattern for the years that followed: the parents did not live together, but both had a formal role in their son’s life.

Through Kennedy’s childhood, Tyna was his mother in Arizona and Illinois reporting, while his father stayed a major presence in his football life. Kennedy has two older half sisters, Pamela and Riley, from his father’s first marriage. When Kennedy began to be recruited by colleges, it was his father’s name that drew national attention, but his upbringing had been shared between both parents under that court arrangement.

Marriage to Ryan Karageorge and His Death

In September 2016, Tyna married Ryan Karageorge, a man from Hobart, Indiana. After the marriage she used the name Tyna Karageorge in court papers and news reports. Ryan became Kennedy’s stepfather, and for a short time the family lived in Willow Springs, Illinois.

On 29 December 2016, Ryan Karageorge died at the family home from a gunshot wound. He was 34 years old. Tyna told police that they had been arguing after a birthday party, that he had taken a gun from her purse, and that he shot himself. The Cook County medical examiner later ruled the death a suicide. That official ruling has been repeated in later court coverage and has not changed.

Kennedy, who was 11 years old at the time, was not at home that night. Reports from the custody hearing said he was visiting his father and learned about his stepfather’s death through a message from a cousin. It is easy, in all the legal reporting, to forget that a young boy was at the centre of these events and had lost a stepfather in sudden and painful circumstances.

Within days, Brian Urlacher filed an emergency request in Cook County court asking that Kennedy be removed from his mother’s home. He said he was concerned about safety after the shooting. In January 2017 a judge granted him temporary custody, and Kennedy moved to live with his father in Arizona, with his wife and daughters. Tyna, in her later lawsuit, said she had not had custody of Kennedy since shortly after Ryan’s death.

The 125 Million Dollar Defamation Lawsuit

In January 2018, Tyna Karageorge filed a defamation lawsuit in Cook County seeking 125 million dollars. The Chicago Tribune reported that she claimed Urlacher, his lawyers, and a Tribune reporter had worked together to paint her as a bad mother, as unfit, and as a killer. The Tribune and the reporter were named in connection with that claim, and Urlacher’s lawyers said the suit repeated past false statements.

In her filing, Tyna wrote that her life had been ruined by what had happened and that people still saw her as a murderer. Whatever a reader thinks about the legal claims, that line explains why she filed. The medical examiner had ruled her husband’s death a suicide, yet public argument about the case had continued around her, and she wanted a court to clear her name.

Parts of that wider legal fight were later dismissed, and some related claims ended with court orders and sanctions in federal proceedings in 2019. There was no single public trial that settled every claim between every party in one judgment. That is common in long civil cases: different claims, against different people, end in different ways and at different times. Readers should be careful with any website that claims one simple final result for the whole dispute, because the public record is more mixed than that.

Kennedy Urlacher’s Football Career Today

Understanding Tyna today means looking, in part, at where her son is now, because his career is the reason most people search for her name. Kennedy played in 14 games as a true freshman at Notre Dame in 2024, mostly on special teams and as a reserve safety. He made 12 tackles, recovered a fumble, and played in the College Football Playoff National Championship game at the end of that season.

In April 2025 he entered the transfer portal and, three days later, announced that he would move to USC. At USC he continued as a safety for the Trojans in the Big Ten Conference. USC’s own roster notes say he played in all 13 games in the 2025 season, with three starts, 26 tackles and one interception. He is listed at 5 feet 11 inches and 200 pounds.

Both parents can be part of that story without the old disputes taking it over. Brian Urlacher has spoken about supporting his son while letting him make his own name. Public reporting about Tyna’s role in Kennedy’s recent college years is very thin. She does not appear in USC coverage, she does not post publicly about his games in any verified account, and no recent interview with her about his transfer or his time at Notre Dame has been published by a major outlet.

What Happened to Tyna Robertson?

That is the question in this article’s title, and the honest answer is short. After the 2018 lawsuit and the court activity that followed, Tyna Robertson stepped away from public attention, or was left out of it, and she has not returned. There is no confirmed recent address for her in reliable reporting, no verified new career, and no confirmed new relationship. Claims on small biography websites about her current job, her wealth, or her daily life are not backed by interviews or documents that a reader can check.

Her net worth is a good example. Some websites publish a neat round figure for her, but no trustworthy source has published financial records for her, and she is not a business owner or entertainer with public earnings. Any figure given for her should be treated as an unverified estimate at best, and this article does not present one as fact.

What can be said with confidence is the timeline. She became a mother in 2005. She shared joint custody of Kennedy after a paternity case. She married Ryan Karageorge in 2016 and lost him within months, in a death officially ruled a suicide. She lost temporary custody of her son soon after, and in 2018 she asked a court for a very large sum, saying she had been defamed. Then the public record goes quiet. Her son grew up, finished high school in Arizona, and built a college football career at two of the biggest programs in the country.

FAQs

Who is Kennedy Urlacher’s mother?

Kennedy Urlacher’s mother is Tyna Robertson, who later used the name Tyna Karageorge after her marriage in 2016. Kennedy’s father is former Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher.

What happened to Tyna Robertson’s husband Ryan Karageorge?

Ryan Karageorge died on 29 December 2016 at the family home in Willow Springs, Illinois, from a gunshot wound. The Cook County medical examiner ruled the death a suicide.

Why did Brian Urlacher get temporary custody in 2017?

After Ryan Karageorge’s death, Urlacher filed an emergency request saying he was concerned about his son’s safety. A Cook County judge granted him temporary custody in January 2017, and Kennedy moved to live with his father.

Where is Tyna Robertson now?

Her present life is not documented in reliable public sources. She has not given recent public interviews, and claims about her current home, work, or wealth on small websites are unverified.

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Final Thoughts

Tyna Robertson’s story is often told only through lawsuits, and that leaves out the human centre of it. She is the mother of a young football player who has reached the top level of college sport. She went through a sudden bereavement, a custody loss, and years of public argument about her name. The confirmed facts end in a quiet present, and that quiet should be reported as it is, without filling the gaps with guesses.

Featured photo: Brian Urlacher – photo by US Army Africa from Vicenza, Italy, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons