ABC News March 9, 2015

Teen Asks Girlfriend to Prom on Jumbotron

Maddy Comito
Jesse Jacobs asked his girlfriend, Maddy Comito, to prom on a Jumbotron.

A North Carolina high school senior got the surprise of her life when her boyfriend asked her to prom on an arena Jumbotron during a college basketball game.

Maddy Comito, of Apex, North Carolina, was expecting Saturday to “be all about” her boyfriend, Jesse Jacobs.

The couple, who has been dating for a year, was attending a North Carolina State University basketball game for which Comito bought Jacobs the tickets as an anniversary gift.

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Instead, all eyes were on Comito as the two 18-year-olds sat in the stands watching the Wolfpack take on Syracuse University. Towards the end of the game, Jacobs told Comito to look up at the Jumbotron during a break in the action.

“Jessie was just kind of talking to me and was like, ‘Hey you should look up at the Jumbotron,’” Comito, a senior at Apex High School, told ABC News. “I looked up and was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’”

“I didn’t know what to do,” she said.

Written in huge letters on the Jumbotron, for all in the arena to see, were the words, “Jesse Jacobs would like to ask Maddy Comito to the 2015 Apex HS Prom.”

“My first thought was, ‘Wait a minute, did I read that right?,’” Comito recalled. “And then I read it again, looked at him and was like, yes, of course.”

Jacobs, a freshman at Wake Technical Community College in nearby Raleigh, told Comito he had the idea for the public proposal as soon as she gave him the game tickets. Jacobs happens to be friends with the son of the manager of the PNC Arena, where the game took place, and asked for a favor.

“They spent about a week planning it out,” Comito said.

Comito’s prom is scheduled for May 2. Though she does not know of any plans to “go big,” again, Comito says a surprise from Jacobs would no longer surprise her.

“He always goes big with everything and he surprises me every time,” she said. "But this was really a surprise."