Jeanie Buss, an executive vice president for the Los Angeles Lakers, confirmed on her Twitter account that her longtime beau, NBA coach Phil Jackson, asked her to marry him.
"Phil finally gave me that ring I wanted!" Buss, 51, wrote.
"I'm beyond happy," Buss told ESPNLosAngeles.com. "I really didn't want it to be news, but I knew people who followed me on Twitter cared about it and I've been wearing the ring since Christmas, so I figured I should let people know."
Jackson, 67, and Buss, 51, have been dating since 1999 and still live together in Playa del Rey, a beach town near the Lakers' headquarters in El Segundo, Calif. The two began dating in 1999 while Jackson was coaching the Lakers, who are owned by Buss' father, Jerry.
In Buss' 2011 book, "Laker Girl," Jackson explained that their courtship began over a vodka gimlet at a dinner after a long day of NBA meetings in Vancouver in 1999 and continued the next day on a flight back to Los Angeles.
"As the first-class passengers were called, I asked if she was going to board the plane, but she said she flew coach, explaining that flying first class wasn't necessary and that the Lakers didn't need the added expense," Jackson writes in the foreword to the book. "Let's just say that was the beginning of something special."
A wedding date has not been announced.
