Power Couple: Tanner Beaman Engaged to Fellow Vik Tori Forst Ahead of Comeback Football Season

PORTLAND, Ore. — Tanner Beaman isn’t one to wait needlessly. 

The Portland State tight end – a second-team All-Big Sky selection in 2024 who will make his return to the football field this season after a season-ending injury a year ago – showed that a few days before fall camp started. On a vacation with girlfriend Tori Forst – herself a standout sprinter for the Portland State track & field team – Beaman proposed. 

“I just didn't feel like there was any need to wait and felt like right now is the perfect time. I mean, since I met her, I knew she was the girl I wanted to spend the rest of my life with,” Beaman said of the proposal. 

Why wait when you’re sure about someone?

That’s not to say Beaman approached the proposal cavalierly. He first got the blessing of Forst’s father. Then came the rest of the plan. Forst’s grandparents have a condo in Longboat Key, Florida, that Forst and her family frequently visited as she grew up. The beach outside that condo is where Forst’s parents – Doug and Cindy – got engaged, and when Beaman tagged along to another family trip there, he knew that’s where the proposal had to happen.

Plan in place, Beaman went about executing it.

After dinner the night of July 22nd, Beaman told Forst’s mother that they were going to go for a walk down the beach. It was carefully timed. Beaman told Cindy Forst that the walk would be 15 minutes down and 15 minutes back. That’d give Forst’s family a chance to hide so they could view the proposal without interrupting it.

“For me, it was very intimate. Just the two of us on the beach,” Tori Forst said of the proposal. “And then afterwards, like, after all the tears, then I look around and my family is, like, sprinting towards me on the beach.”

Beaman pulled off the surprise despite Forst’s suspicions. Forst said the two were always on the same page as far as where their relationship was headed. They even went ring shopping once before last winter. And even on the trip, there were signs that something was brewing.

“He ironed his clothes before we went out to dinner. And, you know, when does he ever iron his clothes? And on the beach, he kept checking his watch. Now I know it was for the 15-minute mark,” Forst said.

“I was definitely suspicious, but if anything, that kind of made, like, the butterflies grow more. Because you’re, like, in anticipation. My hopes were getting high.”

Somebody else knew it was coming in Portland State head football coach Chris Fisk.

“He came in a long time ago to let me know that he had planned something special and that he would need a little bit of time off right before fall camp to go execute his plan. And we were obviously more than happy to accommodate that,” Fisk said of Beaman’s proposal.

“What a great couple and a great relationship. And you just know being around Tanner, he’s going to be a great husband. He’s going to be a great dad. He’s going to be a great employee and community leader.”

Five days after the proposal, Beaman reported with the rest of his teammates for the first day of fall camp. Two days later, the Vikings opened practice.

It was fall camp a year ago that plans derailed for Beaman. During the first week, a wrong step led to a broken foot. Beaman broke his fifth metatarsal, the long, skinny bone along the outside of your foot.

His season was over before it ever really began. And for a competitor like Beaman, who had been named team captain before the injury, it was a particularly bitter pill to swallow. 

It was no secret the Vikings were planning on relying heavily on Beaman last season. He had already been named to the preseason All-Big Sky team, after catching 21 passes for 257 yards in what was a breakout redshirt sophomore season in 2024.

But instead, Beaman was relegated to the sideline where he’d watch the Vikings struggle to a 1-11 record.

“It was frustrating,” Beaman put bluntly.

Forst’s support at home helped. Forst was coming off an injury herself the previous outdoor track season after a promising start to the year. She tied the No. 7 mark all-time in the 60 meters while scoring in the event at the Big Sky Indoor Championships that February. She then won the 200 meters at the Oregon Preview – one of the first meets of the outdoor season – finishing in a personal best of 24.40 seconds. 

But she was shut down soon after that. 

She was just starting to come back this past track season but then suffered another injury that ended her year.

Through it all, the couple took care of each other. For Beaman, he couldn’t put weight on his broken foot for six weeks after his injury. So during that time, Forst stepped up for him.

“She played a huge role through all of that. Like, I couldn’t do anything, really, around the house, or anything at all, for that matter. So, she was there to support me through it all, and obviously emotionally, too, through an injury like that,” Beaman said.

“Missing the whole season was really hard on me, and she was just always there for me in my corner.”

Forst’s support included taking primary care of the couple’s dog, Jasper. A brown and white Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Beaman bought Jasper for Forst as a de facto birthday gift in 2025 – around the time she was recovering from the injury that sidelined her following the Oregon Preview that year.

Those close to the couple noted that the adoption of Jasper was an early sign that things were serious between them.

Another sign came after the 2025 football season. With the Vikings having let go of the previous coaching staff, Beaman entered the transfer portal. But after Fisk was hired, one of the first things he and his staff did was go through the roster and recruit back players like Beaman who they thought could make an impact.

Fisk and the coaches went so far as to meet with Beaman at his father’s house in Vancouver and pitch him on staying.

“We presented our system to him and his father, showing them that we’re really a tight end-based offense. And him being in this offense and the way that we utilize tight ends – the way that we use them in run blocking, but also in the pass game – would be something that would be enticing to him to be part of,” Fisk said of the pitch.

“I think he saw that we were probably organized and ready to go. But really, I think he stayed because of the guys that were his teammates and more importantly, he wanted to bring Portland State football back. And that’s why he came here in the first place, was to get Portland State football back.”

It was a masterful move from Fisk because Forst said she and those closest to Beaman all assumed he was leaving when he entered the portal. But that changed after the visit.

“I was still [in our apartment] and then all of a sudden, I get a call from Tanner. He’s like, ‘I’m staying.’ And I was like, ‘what?’ But he said, ‘I just met them all and they’re amazing, so I’m staying. And I was like, ‘oh my gosh!’”

Both Beaman and Forst agree that they would have stayed together regardless of whether Beaman had transferred or not. But it certainly didn’t hurt that they remained in the same spot.

If anything, Beaman staying at Portland State may have gotten them to the proposal a little sooner.

The first ring shopping trip happened around that time. Beaman ultimately consulted with Forst’s brother, Tyler, who works in the diamond industry, on the exact diamond with which he proposed to Forst.

Forst also returned the favor for Beaman, getting him a ring that he could wear in the leadup to the wedding (tentatively planned for summer 2028).

“That’s something I would suggest all people do because it was really fun. I think it’s really cool now that he has a ring himself,” Forst said. To which Beaman added, “We’re both engaged.”

Beaman’s not one to scare away from commitment, after all. Why would you be when you know you’re with the person you want to be with for the rest of your life?

Say it with your chest. Or down on one knee.