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The flash mob proposal that almost wasn’t

The video of a local basketball coach’s proposal last week in DeWitt, Iowa’s gone viral on YouTube, racking up nearly 100,000 hits in just a few day...

The video of a local basketball coach's proposal last week in DeWitt, Iowa's gone viral on YouTube, racking up nearly 100,000 hits in just a few days.

But it almost didn't happen.

Rewind to last Tuesday at Central Clinton High School-- students, cheerleaders and Coach Brandon Barnhart's sophomore boys basketball team had rehearsed a flash mob routine ahead of time to help Barnhart propose to his girlfriend of four years, Hanna Hagedorn after their game against Dubuque Epworth.

"I walked in [before the game started] and my parents were there," Hagedorn told News 8. "They live in Cedar Rapids and it was the last home game, so I thought my dad was just there to visit."

The game tipped-off, but everyone in the gym was waiting for the clock to tick-down-- the entire community in on the upcoming surprise proposal, except, of course, for Hanna.

"I had no idea what was going on," Hagedorn said.

But during the game, one of Central's players took a hard foul and the ref let it slide.

Hanna didn't-- she jumped up and started yelling at the ref, who almost threw her out of the game and gym for the rest of the night.

"He was yelling at me, the ref was, about shutting up," Hagedorn said.

"And I'm trying to pull the ref's attention to me," added Barnhart, "and the assistant coach was like, "Hey Barnhart, wouldn't it be funny if she got kicked out and you couldn't do this?!"

Fortunately, Hanna sat back down, Central Clinton went on to win, and the rest, they say, is history... or in this case a video of the proposal seen all around the world.

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