Allie Long & Great Heights

This July, U.S. Women's National Soccer Team midfielder Allie Long was attending the 2019 ESPYs in Los Angeles, where her team accepted the award for "Best Team" (The Cut). Following the award show, Long came back to her hotel room only to realize her cash, key to New York City, given to her earlier by mayor Mayor Bill de Blasio, and her beautiful engagement ring were stolen from her room after her door was left slightly ajar. After a night of celebration with her team, this was devastating to the Soccer Star. The key, replaceable, her ring, was not. At the time, due to a soccer-related injury on her hand, Long had removed the ring from her finger and left it in her Ritz Carlton hotel room. It wasn't until the next morning when Long and her husband, fellow soccer star Jose Batista, realized several of their possessions were missing before leaving for their flight. Although the couple filed a police report, there have been no leads in the investigation. "I was still celebrating the World Cup win with my girls so to lose my ring was so upsetting," Long said, "I was really devastated."

Long’s story generated a whirlwind of media attention, and Great Heights quickly became aware of the soccer player's terrible situation. Great Heights had an ongoing relationship with Wasserman, the agency behind Allie Long, and we approached them with the idea to create a new ring for Long. They immediately pitched the idea to the soccer star, who was extremely excited by the idea of having a custom lab-grown diamond engagement ring. Once we explained the background of our lab-grown diamonds, Long was totally on board. "Great Heights is ethical and environmentally-friendly. They're really passionate about changing the way people view diamonds so I was like '100 yes — let's do this' (People).

We were thrilled to work with Long to replace one of Longs most meaningful possessions, besides, of course, a gold medal. We worked closely with Long to present ideas and designs. With endless designs to choose from and decisions to make, we helped her figure out exactly what she wanted from her new ring while allowing Long to be completely hands-on with the designing process. "She opted for an emerald cut diamond, just like her original ring, but amped things up a notch by adding two trapezoid emerald-cut diamonds on either side." (People). "The thing that I love about it [Great Heights] is it's eco-friendly, conflict-free...I just love everything about it," Long said about her new ring in a recent interview with Cheddar. Allie has also mentioned her support for eco-friendly diamonds in an interview with PIX11, "That's one thing that made me even happier, anything that is saving our planet and able to be environmental and ethical is something I'm all about...I think it's the new thing that people will get behind, it's something special, and it's so beautiful…" We totally agree, Allie!