Anna Prins was sitting on the bench completely surprised, but not about the game her team had just won.

After the senior center and ISU women’s basketball team defeated Alabama State, 86-47, as part of the Cyclone Challenge on Dec. 30, ISU coach Bill Fennelly walked to center court of Hilton Coliseum.

Fennelly gave a short speech then went on to introduce Ryan De Hamer, Prins’ boyfriend and brought him out to center court. De Hamer walked to the middle of the floor and asked Prins to join him on the court.

De Hamer then got down on his left knee, presented a ring and said, “Anna Prins, will you marry me?”

She said yes, and Hilton Coliseum began to cheer.

“I had no idea,” Prins said. “Ryan did a good job of playing it off even before that because we would have conversations about it because we’ve been dating for so long. He was kind of playing it off like he wasn’t totally thinking about it yet, so I was getting annoyed and he had the ring the whole time.”

It took Prins and De Hamer three-and-a-half years to reach that moment in front of 7,013 ISU fans on Dec. 30, 2012.

A budding relationship

Prins arrived for her first semester at Iowa State in the fall of 2009. As Prins was preparing for the start of basketball season, little did she know, De Hamer was doing the same.

De Hamer was preparing for his first semester at Iowa State after spending the previous two years playing baseball at MidAmerica Nazarene University in Kansas. After being forced to quit baseball due to an injury, De Hamer transferred to Iowa State in 2009 and planned to be part of the women’s basketball scout team.

Although an eventual scheduling conflict kept De Hamer from officially joining the scout team, he still took time to send well-wishes to the players, Prins in particular.

“I was kind of like, ‘Hey, just wanted to let you know: Have a good year and good luck,'” De Hamer said. “And obviously athletes are pretty busy, so I figured she would probably read it and go about her day. I didn’t really have any intention and lo and behold, she did respond.”

Little by little, the two started talking more, which led to a first date.

About three-and-a-half years later, Prins remembers how excited she was to get the Facebook message from De Hamer. Even before they began dating, Prins said she felt De Hamer was interested in knowing her as a person instead of as a basketball player, which felt refreshing.

“Ryan was my first boyfriend, and it was kind of exciting at first; just everything was new,” Prins said. “He’s really helped me through the ups and downs of my life, especially the basketball part.”

Life as a student-athlete in a relationship

As a former baseball player, De Hamer has not only made the connection with Prins on a personal level, he has been able to understand the daily struggles of being a collegiate athlete.

“He kind of knew what it was like to play a college sport and try to balance everything,” Prins said. “Just to have that outlet to be able to hang out with him when I needed to get away from everything really helped me a lot.”

Having gone through it to an extent, De Hamer understood from the beginning what commitment Prins would need to give to basketball for lifting, practice, travel and on top of it all, schoolwork.

De Hamer feels that the similarity in what he went through is nice to have when Prins seems to be going through a rough patch.

“A lot of our conversations sprouted from, even to this day, about how not everybody understands the pressure and the time someone goes through in college athletics,” De Hamer said. “It was something that kind of calms her down.”

The big day

After De Hamer decided Prins was the person he wanted to marry, he talked with her father, Ardell Prins, after Iowa State’s game against Iowa this season. De Hamer told only his parents and Prins’ parents about his idea of proposing to Anna.

It was then that De Hamer contacted Fennelly and informed him of his idea.

“[De Hamer] came in and just presented the plan and asked if we could do it,” Fennelly said. “I thought it was a great idea [and I was] honored to be a part of it, especially because the basketball family is so close to Anna and her family was in town watching the tournament.”

One thing De Hamer stressed to Fennelly was that his proposal plan was not about publicity for Prins or himself.

“Basically since we started dating, the people that surround us have always been Iowa State people not just random friends,” De Hamer said. “The main focus I wanted to have was her family there, my family there and then all of the community we have kind of grown to know the last three-and-a-half years we’ve been dating.”

After several weeks of planning the proposal, both families were in town and the day finally came. De Hamer left his seat with four minutes left in the game, went to the outer concourse of Hilton Coliseum and walked around trying to calm his nerves.

“I tried to make sure I wasn’t freaking out too much,” De Hamer said with a laugh. “I was nervous, mostly because it was in front of people, but it was just because I have never been more excited or happy to do anything in my whole life.”

Although no definite wedding date has been set, Prins said it is on her mind from time to time. However, she is focused on basketball season.

“We’ve thought about probably the summer of 2014 but we haven’t started planning anything because I need to finish the season first,” Prins said. “There’s always Pinterest. I look on there for ideas every once in a while, but I know my first priority is on the season. We have plenty of time to plan.” 

For Fennelly, who held the ring in his pocket throughout the game that night, this was the first time in his coaching career that one of his players had been proposed to on court and was “one of the greatest moments of my career.”

“He set the bar pretty high for everybody else,” Fennelly said. “I said to the kids after the game, as a coach, you’re so focused on winning games and that moment I think was one of those moments that trumped everything. It was one of those moments that everyone will remember.”