On bended knee in the middle of Chicago's Soldier Field, Charles Leno Jr. was so nervous asking his girlfriend to marry him, he fumbled her name.
On bended knee in the middle of Chicago’s Soldier Field, Charles Leno Jr. was so nervous asking his girlfriend to marry him, he fumbled her name.
"Jennifer Marie Roth, would you love to be Charles Leno? I mean, Jennifer Marie Leno Jr.?” Leno asks in a video uploaded to the Chicago Bears’ Twitter account.
Roth accepts, smiling and saying yes six times. The sweet video also shows Leno’s teammates cheering him on.
Roth and Leno have been in a relationship for five years, but Leno had been planning to pop the question for some time. Once he found out the Bears could clinch the division Sunday, Leno decided that would be the perfect time and place – whether they won or not.
“I just had a feeling,” Leno told the Chicago Tribune. “I knew the way we were prepared this week. I knew the way our team was ready.”
And they were: The Bears beat the Green Bay Packers, 24-17.
Leno asked Roth’s dad for permission. He made sure both her parents were there and his parents were flown in for the special occasion.
But all that excitement got the best of Leno at the beginning of the game, when he was called for a false start.
“If you couldn’t tell by the first play of the game and my proposal speech, I was shook today. Thank you for all the love and support,” he tweeted.
Leno called it one of the best days of his life.
“I checked off so many things today. You know what the big one is. But I never beat the Packers at home. I’ve never had a winning season, never had double-digit wins. Have never been the NFC (North) champions. I’ve been through some dark days here, and this is one of the greatest days of my life,” Leno said.
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