"When he asked me, 'Will you marry me?' I kept shaking my head. I don't think I physically got the word, but he got the idea," said Erin Tobin.
When basketball fan Erin Tobin was invited to attempt a half-court shot at Siena College on Thursday night, two unexpected things happened.
First, she made the shot. And second, her boyfriend jumped out of a mascot costume and proposed.
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Tobin, 30, from Albany, New York, was invited back to her alma mater to attempt the shot and possibly win a $500 gift card.
Tobin, who is an avid basketball fan and attends most of Siena College’s games with her family, said she didn’t think she would make it.
“Honestly, I went with a couple of my girlfriends ahead of time and said, ‘I’m going to have two beers to work up my nerve, and I’m just going to heave it,'” Tobin joked to InsideEdition.com. “I played [basketball] all throughout high school, but I sat on the bench a lot.”
Despite expecting to miss, Tobin threw the ball with all her might and it somehow made the basket.
As she turned around in celebration, one of the mascots, a Dunkin Donuts coffee cup, took off its costume, revealing her boyfriend, Steve Duckett, down on one knee.
“He knows how much I love basketball, and how much I love Siena,” Tobin said. “When he asked me, ‘Will you marry me?’ I kept shaking my head. I don’t think I physically got the word [out], but he got the idea.”
Tobin met Duckett online almost three years ago, and even though she didn’t know about his plans to propose, she had a feeling he would pop the question soon.
Duckett had told her he was working that night and even said he'd try to take the day off work to watch her make the big shot.
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“I said, ‘No, I’m never going to make the shot ever,’” she said. “I have the biggest family ever, and he had everybody there. He planned it so perfectly.”
