‘I was really sneaky with it.’ UK football star proposes during weekend getaway.
Landon Young has lined up against some of the fiercest defenders in the Southeastern Conference. Any nervousness he’s ever felt on the football field pales in comparison to the butterflies in his gut on Saturday.
Young proposed to his longtime girlfriend, Haleigh Johnson, during a trip to Gatlinburg, Tenn., with his parents and her parents over the weekend. It left the 6-foot-7, 321-pound offensive tackle winded.
“I’d rather go out and play 100 games than do that again,” Young said with a laugh.
It was the latest major life decision made by Young in as many months. In January, soon after Kentucky’s 37-30 win over Virginia Tech in the Belk Bowl, he weighed leaving UK for the 2020 NFL Draft. Young might have been selected in the latter stages of this year’s draft, but he decided to use his fifth year of eligibility in Lexington after extensive conversations with his parents, coaches, past and present NFL players and other folks who’ve had a significant influence on his life.
“At the end of the day I said, ‘God, if you can, I’m not good at this subtle hints thing, like my girlfriend tries to do to me, fiancée now,’” Young said with a laugh. “’I said if this is what you want from me, make it evident in my mind.’ And He definitely did. It just always rang that this year was not my year to go to the draft, but next year it will be.”
While he was sorting through whether to pursue his pro dream or continue his college career, Young was plotting his engagement plans behind the scenes. He and Haleigh shopped for jewelry to buy her mother a gift for Christmas in December, allowing him to collect intel.
“I was really sneaky with it,” Young said. “I held it off and made her think nothing like this was gonna happen for a while, until at least after this season and after I was done with college. ... She was like, ‘Oh I just want to look around at these rings,’ and I was like, ‘You go ahead and just look at ‘em, I know you want to.’ Little did she know that I was putting that mental picture in my mind of what she liked. It was really a fun experience.”
The proposal itself occurred after a ski-lift ride up to the entrance of Gatlinburg’s SkyBridge, an attraction purported to be the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in North America. The former Lafayette High School standout got down on his right knee and popped the question; he briefly thought about kneeling on his surgically repaired left knee — since he’s a left tackle — but thought better of it because “not everything has to connect to football.”
She said yes — like he assumed she would — but it was still an incredible relief after weeks of sweating out the details.
“Asking any girl’s dad for her hand in marriage is not a comfortable feeling,” Young said. “And then of course asking her and worrying about, ‘Oh, is it the right ring? Is it a pretty ring? Did you do it the right way? Is it the right timing?’ And thinking of what was going through her head. ... It was very unnerving on my stomach, I’ll say that.
“It’s a really good experience and I hope lots of other people on the team can be able to experience that one day.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2020 at 11:57 AM.
