Rough Notes: The First Super Queer Proposal In Ballhalla
A love story meets the Valkyries jumbotron.
When I catch a whiff of the potential first-ever engagement during a Valkyries game, I jump into action: it’s exactly the kind of exclusive Rough Notes reporting we need in the world: behind-the-scenes of a queer couple from the East Bay about to make history at Ballhalla.
Meet Bridget & Toni. They are in love. I can’t show you photos of their faces because one is a therapist and we must be sure to protect that holy Bay Area space of client and practitioner. But hang tight, a sort-of picture book is coming!
The Origin Story
The night Toni first met Bridget in the fall of 2020, she didn’t eat dinner. “This feels like an important detail,” Toni tells me, “because I’m very food oriented and feel very ungrounded and anxious if I don’t have my dinner.” They were supposed to go for an afternoon walk on the beach: carefully socially distanced, sensible, and short. But the sparkly chemistry of two humans who would one day decide to be married derailed all plans. “I was home at 1am,” says Toni. “We were out on the beach and time stopped.”
This all took place during that initial period of the COVID-19 pandemic when people obsessively wore homemade masks (“that we now know don’t really work that well,” as Bridget says) and referred to family members or roommates as “pods.” So when Bridget got home that night, her roommates already asleep, she decided to keep her cloth mask on while she slept.
Bridget was into the WNBA before dating Toni, but together with her new girlfriend their levels of obsession deepened significantly. Of course they did: a gay relationship is the most powerful tool for WNBA fandom, sort of like cheese transforms wine or how traveling to a different city makes you remember that you can stay up past 9pm.
Quickly, the couple fell in love not only with one another but also the Las Vegas Aces. They swooned for Chelsea Gray as a Bay Area hometown hero and followed the unhinged camaraderie of Aces locker room during the team’s 2022-23 WNBA championship-winning season, idolizing the comedic orchestration of one Sydney Colson. They also watched all of Unrivaled live during the winter of 2024-25 and developed a knack for knowing players’ heights. “It’s mind boggling to me that Phee is only 6’1,” Toni says.
Queering It Up
But for Toni and Bridget, deciding to get married wasn’t an obvious choice. “There are so many things that are uncomfortable to uphold around marriage and tradition,” Toni says. “It’s been a convo we’ve been percolating around for a while: how are we gonna do it, how are we gonna queer it up?” The couple decided to take turns proposing to one another, and in lieu of a traditional wedding, are planning a “small ritual” (mysterious!)
First was Toni’s proposal, who pulled out a tiny homemade diorama depicting the couple’s first date as they returned to the beach at Pt. Reyes (of course she made a homemade diorama, these are the most adorable queers.) Then came Bridget’s turn. And right away she knew what she wanted the backdrop to be.
Off To Ballhalla
The arrival of the Golden State Valkyries gave Bridget and Toni a new opportunity for WNBA exposure. Neither had ever purchased season tickets to any sport before. At first, they were worried about the prices of tickets, the grueling WNBA schedule (games on weeknights?! In San Francisco?), but they got charmed by their skilled + queer Valkyries sales rep, known for wearing great pantsuits, who sold them on a package in the “lower bowl.”
As soon as the couple actually attended a game, they realized that Ballhalla was hallowed ground for them. It contained a kind of joy, release, and community that Toni badly needed. “In the pandemic, so much changed in my life… emerging out of that period of time, my life is unrecognizable to me,” Toni tells me. “I’ve had a hard time finding joy and fun and entertainment… And going to that first game I was like HOLY SHIT, this is it! I can get into the zone of being outside of myself and outside of my head. I haven’t had stuff in my social life like that in a really long time.”
Bridget is a spontaneous person (she works in adult special education, so nearly every day holds twists and surprises), and so after Toni’s proposal, she decided on the perfect location for own: Ballhalla, on June 7th, during the Valkyries game against the Las Vegas Aces. The only problem is that this game is taking place in just a few short days. Plus, Bridget is facing a series of rapid-fire obstacles she must somehow overcome:
Obstacle #1: Figuring Out How To Get On The Jumbotron
Bridget’s mind leaps to the jumbotron. But how do you get yourself on such a thing? She finds an internet form & manages to get in touch with the Valkyries PR team. But once connected with the “in-game entertainment team,” Bridget hits a snag. The snag is that “engagement language” is no longer allowed on-screen at Chase Center (I learn later, from an insider anonymous source, that this is because once at a Warriors game someone “said no.”) So Bridget gets creative. She crafts a message not about whether Toni would like to marry her but instead saying that she has a question to ask her. And that will cue Bridget to get on one knee.
Obstacle #2: Finishing The Satchel
Of course there is a satchel for this momentous occasion. It contains critical items for gay love including “a little bit of wax and sand from our first date, a small basketball for collective joy and a little bit of mugwort for our dreams,” according to Bridget, who is not sure what to make the actual satchel out of. Should she use the hand-dyed purple yarn, Valkyries colors, that still needs to be knit into the correct shape? Bridget considers hiding out in the garage the morning of the game to knit a satchel, but there’s no time. Finally, she decides to switch it up: she’ll use her old cloth mask, the one she wore to sleep after first kissing Toni, to hold these sacred little items. She’s always wanted to reinvent that material into something new.
a most precious mask-turned-satchel
Obstacle #3: The Journey To Halftime
On the day of the game, Bridget & Toni’s journey to Chase Center is pretty inconspicuous. They take their usual bike ride to the bay front, docking at Jack London Square, where the ferry awaits. It’s a joyous ride: local celebrity Layshia Clarendon is on-board, and fans cheer in unison during the ride. Here’s actual footage from that ride, recorded by other intrepid reporters of Rough Notes Nation:
Bridget knows from the folks at Chase Center what the general “plan” will be — 6 minutes before halftime ends, her message will appear on the jumbotron, and she’ll propose to her love. She’s excited and nervous throughout the first half of the game, which is a surprising and rollicking two quarters for the Valkyries, whose defense is both controlled and ferocious. By halftime, the double team on A’ja Wilson has quieted her to just 8 points, Monique Billings swatting the ball from her grip with confidence that feels not only individual, but cultural. Becky is screaming. And Bridget is counting down the minutes.
Obstacle #4: Toni Has To Pee
But then Toni announces she has to pee. It’s because she welcomes the break of halftime, this small freedom, the ability to roam. And so after peeing, and instead of coming directly back to her seat, Toni decides to float by the Valkyries shop, checking out the newest gear.
There are now just nine minutes left in the halftime. It’s basically showtime, and Toni is missing. Bridget is getting anxious. She texts me: “I don’t know where Toni is.”
Obstacle #5: The reporter joins the story
Meanwhile, I am beelining over to Bridget & Toni’s section, hoping to be lurking nearby as the proposal happens, when I get this text from Bridget. I jump into action because I can’t help myself. We must track Toni down, without being super obvious about it. Bridget comes to the top of the stairs, peeking out into the concession area, before turning and running back to her seat.
That’s when I see Toni emerging through the crowd. “I want to say hi to you guys and see where you sit!” I cry out. “Sure,” says Toni. I practically gallop her over to the section, tumbling down the stairs to find Bridget. Toni follows behind, and Bridget waves warmly: “Hi!” she calls out. We’re now at the six minute mark. The messge could appear at any time; all Toni has to do is sit down. Instead, she responds to Bridget, “I think I want to go get some water.”
Obstacle #6: Toni Wants To Go Get Some Water
“But…” Bridget begins, searching for a reason, and I blurt out: “we need to take selfies!” Toni obliges, and we snap a few, from three different angles, during which either Bridget or I is staring from the corner of our eyes at the jumbotron. And then, finally, the message appears and Bridget says, “Toni, look!”
The First-Ever Engagement In Ballhalla Is Really Happening
The realization dawns on Toni’s face as she reads. As she tells me later: “I had no idea that it was happening at the game, no notion… when I saw the message, I think I blacked out a little. I didn’t fully take in what the message said. And then I was like, oh my god, I cannot believe she did this, it’s so fucking cool.”
There are no more obstacles left. Bridget lowers to the ground on one knee. Toni is agape, surprised and flushed. “I felt so seen and felt so elated and excited and it was so special,” she says later. Meanwhile, everyone in the section is watching. No one can make out what Bridget says, or what Toni says back, just that the couple is all smiles and wobbles and that they come together to kiss each other while the crowd begins to cheer. “Never has anything like that happened to me,” Toni says. “I was just in awe.”
It’s this beautiful form of creation: the first queer engagement at a WNBA game in the Bay. Something made not by the players or coaches or much of the Golden State franchise, really. Instead, it’s a moment imagined and lived by two new-ish WNBA fans, who relate to women’s basketball as part of their own romantic spark. “Why not [propose] in front of all of our most favorite WNBA players?” as Bridget tells me.
This idea makes so much sense to me. Because not only do we watch WNBA players as they live out their dreams, but so too do our lives continue around, and intertwined with, this very same place. Bridget and Toni’s relationship to the Valkyries is about the women whose brilliance and hilarity and solidarity helps to expand their own world. As women’s basketball fans, there’s so much more than a final score of a game that becomes imprinted on our lives. And here in the Bay Area, that process is only just beginning: fertile with new possibilities.
So here’s to this epic engagement, and to all the ways that we, as fans, can too can inject ourselves into the historical record of the WNBA. Congratulations to Bridget & Toni! (And if you’re reading this, Chase Center, please consider changing your policy to include engagements on the jumbotron for Valkyries games: it’s a powerful way to see ourselves as queer, diverse, intergenerational WNBA fans reflected on the big screen.)
Ok this made me cry tho 🥹
Who's crying, I'm not crying...