Ayesha Curry has certainly navigated many challenges during her long-term relationship with NBA superstar Steph Curry, but one of their first major hiccups was surprisingly over the very thing that made him an international icon: his basketball career.

While on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, Ayesha, 36, recalled the moment Steph was drafted by the Golden State Warriors in 2009.

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What should’ve been an exciting moment for a 21-year-old Steph, however, was met with some serious skepticism from Ayesha.

But it wasn’t Steph’s on-court ability that had her unsettled; it was the fact that he wouldn’t be able to graduate from college if he joined the league at that moment.

“He had a big decision to make because he had a year, he had a senior year left,” Ayesha said. “So it was like, do I stay? Do I go? And like, think what a lot of people don’t know is he really thought about it. It was like a torment for him.”

According to Ayesha, Steph, who played Division 1 basketball for Davidson College from 2006 to 2009, once “called me crying behind a tree” over the NBA draft, eventually admitting, “I don’t know what to do.”

For Ayesha, though, the answer was clear. “I was like, ‘Stay in school,'” she recalled telling him, later explaining that the people around her growing up really emphasized the importance of going to college and obtaining an education.

Another reason Ayesha encouraged the now-four-time NBA champion to stay in school is that she wasn’t big into sports. “I grew up in such an arts-driven family that sports outside of, like, Doug Flutie playing for the Buffalo Bills, like, wasn’t a thing in my house,” she said.

Steph wound up signing with the Golden State Warriors in 2009 and has since had an extraordinary career, including four NBA championships, one NBA Finals MVP title, two NBA MVP titles, and an Olympic gold medal.

Shortly after joining the Warriors, according to PEOPLE, Steph proposed to Ayesha in an intimate moment in front of their families in 2010.

“He asked me if I knew where we were standing. It was [in the driveway of my parents house] the spot where we had our first kiss,” she said. “He pulled me close and started saying all these sweet things, and then dropped down on one knee. I was in a state of shock.”

Since then, the famous couple has welcomed four children, Riley, Ryan, Cannon, and their youngest child, Caius, in 2024. In a separate interview, Ayesha, who also owns the lifestyle brand Sweet July, opened up about how she and Steph ensure their relationship stays ahead of their kids.

As Ayesha put it, her marriage with Steph “always comes first,” and it’s so that they can be aligned while raising their four children.

“And that works for us because then you have two happy people raising the kids in the house. So the family sector in our lives always comes first,” she told PEOPLE.

But that’s not all that’s going on inside the Currys’ household. Ayesha also revealed that she and Steph are constantly evolving by surrounding themselves with people who can challenge them to grow beyond their limits.

“And then honestly, it’s just surrounding ourselves with people that are smarter than us and know what they’re doing and can make the things run,” she said. “And they allow us the space to be creative, and they allow us the space to truly show up however we choose to. And I think that’s what’s really worked for us.”

Ayesha and Steph are one of those beloved celebrity couples the public can’t get enough of, and in 2020, social media proved exactly that.

After the NBA guard posted a revealing photo of himself and Ayesha, users couldn’t help but point out Steph’s shorts, which appeared to have something protruding from them.

“I ain’t even know Curry been freaky like this,” someone wrote, while another said, “Wow, so hot!”

Another wrote that “good men” are always “freaky,” and a fourth shared that they couldn’t believe Curry posted the photo in the first place.