While the rivalry game didn’t go the way Michigan basketball center Vladislav Goldin hoped, what happened afterward was a night he will never forget.
Moments after Goldin finished up his postgame media duties after his team’s 75-62 loss to rival Michigan State, he returned to the Crisler Center court. There, his girlfriend Camryn Vogler was waiting to greet him.
Vogler’s not normally one for pictures, she said, but on this day was compelled to ask for one. She went to put her arm around Goldin — who had a ring behind his back, right where Vogler almost put her hand — but instead of posing as they normally would, the 7-foot-1 Goldin instead got down on one knee and proposed to his longtime girlfriend.
She said yes.
‘Oh, completely surprised,’ Vogler told the Free Press. ‘I had no idea.’
Neither did Goldin, actually.
After a courtship that began in Boca Raton, Florida, when she was a member of the Florida Atlantic volleyball team and the big Russian was starring for the hoops team, the two have since been dating for 2½ years.
When Goldin woke up Friday morning, he admitted, the plan was to ask on Saturday.
See, Goldin was on the road for Valentine’s Day, due to Michigan’s game at Ohio State last weekend and the two never got to celebrate the holiday. So, he devised a game plan to take her to the park, then a restaurant where he would ask the question.
Instead, on Friday, he was reflecting after one of the tougher regular-season losses of his career, and that’s when it hit him.
‘I was like, ‘You know what, this is probably something bigger.’ “ Goldin said. ‘Not to take away from everything, but life outside basketball is way bigger than basketball. So I just thought, she had a great energy, she looked great, why wait to do it tomorrow? So I changed my mind and decided to do it.’
Goldin had her fooled completely. Vogler said the two called a ring store in Tampa, Florida —her hometown — Friday morning with the intention of eventually getting a ring. Instead, he’d been hiding it for quite some time in the U-M locker room.
As of the moment of their interview with the Free Press, not even their parents knew. Nimari Burnett and his girlfriend, Diana, were on the court and the first ones to know before moments later Harrison Hochberg came by to hug his friend and staffers dropped off some maize and blue flowers for the happy couple.
‘Oh yeah,’ Vogler said. ‘I should probably call them.’