Love and Refereeing: Couple's viral proposal in Lewisville gym captures hearts
Working out is part of the everyday routine for Haley Johnson and Christian Wortham.
It's one of the things the couple bonded over.
The other was refereeing basketball games, which Johnson has been doing for 15 years.
"I kept going and I did my first varsity game when I was 16, and by that point I just loved it. I always wanted to ref in the NBA," said Johnson.
Love on and off the court
Reffing brought the two together, but now they're just in love.
"He's super sweet, so sweet," said Johnson.
"The quality I love about her is how easy she is to get along with," said Wortham.
A dream proposal fulfilled
That's why it was an easy decision for Wortham to ask Johnson to marry him in a basketball gym.
"She said she'd been dreaming it up since she was 12 years old," he said.
"I told my family and my friends because I wanted to make sure that he knew that this is how I wanted it to happen," said Johnson.
A proposal on the court
So, after the two finished refereeing a basketball game in a gym in Lewisville, Wortham got ready to ask the question.
"I asked Haley, Haley, can you go get my water bottle?" he said. "Right when she turned around, I grabbed the ring from my evaluator's pocket."
"That's when the referee evaluator was like, Christian, do you have anything else to say? And Christian said, 'Yeah, I actually do,'" Johnson remembers.
"That's when it happened. I got on one knee, told her, 'Hey, I love you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?'" said Wortham.
"Obviously, it was the best day of my life because as a little girl, that's what you always want," said Johnson.
From game to engagement
Sweaty, tired, and wearing stripes... just like every little girl dreams of.
Johnson posted the video on her Instagram, and people started to notice.
"Everybody was congratulating us, the referees, even the coaches who were screaming at us the game before, the players who were cursing us out," said Wortham.
Love story goes viral
But then ESPN asked if they could repost the video on SportsCenter's Instagram page.
"I didn't expect it to blow up as it did because we did it in a corner of a gym, literally in probably the most inconvenient spot to propose something like that," said Wortham.
Roughly 181,000 likes later, Johnson and Wortham's love story has officially gone viral.
"I'm just praying that maybe it encourages someone to make that next step to get engaged or get married. Just to know that people are out there and love exists, it can exist," said Johnson.
