Page 30 of On His Team

The second I mentioned doing my master’s, Stanley nearly knocked over his drink. Benson started asking about applications. Percy looked relieved. I told them I still had eligibility because of the year I lost to my shoulder and that I could probably play another season. Maybe two.

All of that is true.

It still feels weird when I think of it as a plan.

I put my laptop in my bag and leave.

There are a little over three hours until I have to be at the rink, so I get a sandwich from the union and take one of the tables along the windows. Snow has been pushed into dirty piles along the sidewalks outside, and everybody crossing the quad has their head down against the wind.

I open my laptop. Camden’s graduate program is still sitting in one tab from the last time I looked at it. I leave it alone and open the job board instead.

Kwan wants three positions.

Event Operations Coordinator — Detroit.

Full-time. Game-day operations, facility setup, staffing, vendor coordination, event conversion. Nights and weekends. Bachelor’s degree required. One year of related experience preferred.

It’s hockey without playing hockey.

I scroll down to the salary.

Forty-four thousand to start.

Not great. Not impossible. Detroit is less than three hours from Camden, and I understand almost everything in the job description without having to look any of it up.

I could do this. More than that, I could probably get an interview. I read the listing again. Then I hit Save instead of Apply. The little icon changes, and I sit there looking at it like that counts as progress.

It doesn’t.

I save two more positions because Kwan asked for three, but I barely read either one long enough to picture myself doing it. Assignment technically almost complete. Problem unchanged.

For four years, everything has had a next thing attached to it. Fall semester becomes spring semester. Spring becomes summer training. Summer becomes another season. There’s always another schedule, another class, another game, another date already sitting on the calendar.

Now people keep asking what I’m doing after May like there’s supposed to be another box waiting for me and I just haven’t filled it in yet.

There isn’t.

I have to pick one.

My eyes drift toward the tab behind the job board.

Camden University.

Master of Science in Sport Administration.

I click it.

Thirty-three credits. Graduate assistantships available. Fall admission deadline: March first.

I’ve already confirmed the hockey side with compliance. I lost my freshman season to the shoulder surgery, so I have eligibility left. Staying is possible.

That part is easy. I scroll farther down.

Transcript. Two letters of recommendation. Résumé. Statement of purpose — five hundred to seven hundred and fifty words explaining my professional goals and why the program fits them.

I stop there.

Professional goals.