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Ryan’s emotional intelligence helped craft a couple of legacies at UVA. One will be celebrated Sunday at John Paul Jones Arena . 

Ryan’s other, less publicized legacy is still felt throughout UVA Health, the University’s medical enterprise, where she spent a decade as a fundraiser for causes including cancer research and other deadly diseases.

Forming bonds was at the heart of this career, too.

“What I’m most proud of is that I was always a good listener,” Ryan said. “I was someone who cared.”

It turns out Ryan didn’t stop producing eye-popping numbers after retiring from coaching in 2011. She finished with 24 NCAA Tournament appearances, 14 Atlantic Coast Conference regular season and tournament championships, the three Final Fours and 739 wins. But as a principal gift officer for UVA Health from 2013 to 2023, she helped raise $33 million and visited with donors or prospective donors 976 times. 

Ryan poses alongside current UVA women’s basketball coach Amaka “Mox” Agugua-Hamilton and legendary former Cavalier player Dawn Staley at John Paul Jones Arena. With Staley, Ryan took the Wahoos to three Final Fours in the early 1990s. (Photo by Matt Riley, University Communications)

Jas Heim, UVA Health’s executive director of development for health care philanthropy, was part of a group that presented Ryan with a foam scoreboard listing those accomplishments on her final day in the role.

But the statistics were just part of Ryan’s story, as the scoreboard also had a custom “impact” panel with “immeasurable” filling the space.

“What always mattered to her was the story of the person’s life,” Heim said. “She always reminded us of that.”

Ryan, now 73, often met with potential donors who were cancer patients – an experience she understood personally after surviving pancreatic cancer under �鶹�ƽ�� care in her late 40s, despite long odds. She later played an integral role in the , which opened in 2011.

Ryan addresses her friends and colleagues at UVA Health during a 2023 ceremony to celebrate her last day as a fundraiser. The displayed scoreboard represents Ryan’s contributions to UVA Health, including $33 million raised. (Contributed photo)

Like with Staley, Ryan was willing to talk to patients about anything. Conversations could flow from medical questions – “They’d ask about what to eat,” she said, “and how to keep their weight up” – to her old job. 

“Of course they’d want to talk about basketball,” she said, “and what’s going on with the women or what (former UVA men’s basketball coach) Tony Bennett’s really thinking.”

The end goal wasn’t a financial commitment. 

“I refused to be a salesperson,” Ryan said. “I wasn’t going to do that. I was going to be who I was, and I was going to forge a good relationship with the person, whether they donated or not.”

That approach resonated throughout the staff, Heim said. 

Ryan takes in a recent basketball game at John Paul Jones Arena. A banner will be raised there in her honor on Sunday. (Virginia Athletics photo)

“When she was a coach, she was serving the institution; she was serving the student-athletes,” Heim said. “And when she was in this role, she was doing it in service of patients now and into the future.

“So, anytime you got even a little bit off track, or you just were having a hard day, she would be the first to remind you of why you were doing it.”

Ryan’s motivating spirit continued long after her coaching career. She supported longtime friend Dr. Bobby Chhabra during construction of the UVA Health Orthopedic Center on Ivy Road, when progress on his professional dream felt like it was plodding along.  

“I got really frustrated many times,” said Chhabra, a member of �鶹�ƽ�� medical community for three decades and chair of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery since 2013. “I was like, ‘This is never going to happen.’ And she was always there to push me forward and say, ‘You can do it. You can make it.’”

The sparkling $185 million facility finally opened in 2022.

“There are a lot of people I’m grateful for across the institution, and so many people who helped make this a reality,” Chhabra said, “but she was a really special person to me because she was by my side and was having conversations with donors.”

Or, as Ryan calls them, “people.”

“It was the personal touch I could give them,” Ryan said. “I could extend a hand, and they would grab it right away. 

“I wasn’t in this for a career. I was in it because I really, really wanted to give back – and that’s how I gave back.”