A Marshall-themed love story started a new chapter for the newest Mr. Marshall and his fiancée during halftime of the Herd’s homecoming game against Coastal Carolina. After being named Mr. Marshall for 2022, Calvin Hunter proposed to his long-time girlfriend Olivia Roberts in front of a cheering student section and dozens of cell phone cameras.

“Everything about it was perfect,” Roberts, a senior from Proctorville, Ohio, said.

While Roberts felt surprised and overjoyed, Hunter felt anxious about ensuring every detail was perfect.

“In the video, I actually couldn’t get the box oriented properly because I pulled it out of my jacket. I pulled it out properly, and then I, like, flipped it and rotated and flipped it again,” Hunter said.

Although Hunter and Roberts had connections through family friends before their time in Huntington, the two didn’t meet until January 2020. The two started dating only a few days later.

The couple spent the first few months of their relationship traveling back and forth to each other’s hometowns during the beginning stages of the pandemic.

Two years later, Roberts coordinated a surprise visit to Hunter while he studied abroad in England at the University of Oxford this past summer. The video, posted on Robert’s Facebook with over 1,500 views, shows Hunter walking down the street until Roberts stands up from a cafe chair and Hunter’s jaw-drops.

Hunter initially hoped for Roberts to visit him while he was in Norway before England to do the proposal there. When Roberts couldn’t make the first trip, Hunter waited to buy the ring until later, only for his friends to ask if he had it during her surprise visit to the UK.

Sometimes, however, those who fall in love at Marshall might find it beneficial to have their proposal close to home.

“So the one thing I told him when we first started dating, I was like, ‘If we continue this relationship—we get engaged to get married—I have two requests. One is that somebody is there to take a picture and I have my nails done.’ Never did I imagine that his family was there, my family was there, all of our friends. I had people texting me in the stands who I work with. 

It just was perfect,” Roberts said.

Roberts will graduate with a bachelor’s in elementary education in December 2022 and plans on moving with Hunter wherever he attends dental school after graduating with a bachelor’s in biology in the spring of 2023.