Page 8 of Matched By My Rival
Sports Leadership was one of my smaller classes, with four rows of five desks and only half of those filled—a far cry from the lecture halls with risers to allow for a hundred-plus students to attend. Darnell was sitting in the middle of the third row, right beside my usual seat one row to the left. After everything went down with the team, I’d tried moving, but Darnell had just shifted seats so that he was beside me—even when I was a dick about it.
That was loyalty, and my boy Double D had it in extra measure. I’d finally given up and secretly been happy to continue being desk buddies. Though I had the frat, I missed having teammates.
Today, his eyes lacked their usual good humor. I dropped my backpack to the floor and folded into my too-small desk-slash-chair torture device. These seats were not made for big guys, and Darnell looked even more ridiculously uncomfortable than I was.
“Glum is my default,” I said. Even when I’d been on the team, I was too broody for most of the guys. “What’s your excuse?”
“Coach ripped us a new one, is all. Nothing you want to hear about.”
“I guess there’s one silver lining to getting my ass booted.”
Professor Jennings stepped to the front of the class just then, beginning the lecture. She was a slender, petite woman, but she’d soon shown us that she was every bit the athlete we were. She’d once been a professional gymnast on the Olympic track before an injury took her out of consideration.
Fucking injuries.Maybe they got us all in the end, and I’d just been lucky to get my ass booted for fighting before my body could break down entirely.
This class was primarily focused on leadership and programming in athletics. We learned principles that could be applied to teams, events, or facilities. It was one of the required courses for the “sports management” focus of my business degree. Our school was too small to offer the sports degree all on its own, but it could be paired with business and/or one of the exercise science programs like kinesiology. A lot of guys took it as an elective, even if they were majoring in other areas, because anything sports-related was of interest.
The jury was out on how far my degree could actually take me. I’d once hoped to benefit from Coach’s connections—assuming I didn’t get drafted, what a joke that dream seemed now—but I’d burned that bridge when I decked Reed. Once the video went viral, I was toast. I got read the riot act about how I wasn’t a team player, how I was selfish and impulsive, and how I’d cast shame on the entire football program.
I wasn’t proud of that chapter in my life or what followed. I’d yelled. I’d thrown a tantrum worthy of any two-year-old. I’d apologized; I’d groveled. At the end, I’d even cried.
It hadn’t mattered. I was done.
And just like that, my dream was gone—and cold, hard reality had taken its place.
A business degree with an emphasis in sports management would get me a job. But without any contacts in the sports world, it wouldn’t be a position working with an NFL team; it wouldn’t be scouting for a major sports organization. It probably wouldn’t even be a stadium management job. No, with the way things stood now, I’d be lucky to supervise a gym or push paper for a community rec league.
“I want to talk about your final projects today,” Jennings said, recapturing my attention. “I know, I know. Finals feel ages away. But this is a big deal, and I want you to start thinking now.”
“Here we go,” Darnell grumbled. He was a top-notch athlete and a hell of a good guy, but he did not enjoy academics.
Jennings continued. “There’s a lot of room for creativity here, but you’ll also need to think out of the box. I want you to consider what’s lacking in the sports industry. This could be at the professional, collegiate, even high school levels. What voids exist in programming, in leadership? Is there a need for better transition prep from high school to college, for example? Or better academic support in high school? Or maybe it’s something more ingrained than that.” Jennings’s eyes shifted to one of the female track stars in the class. “Is it how women are treated, differences in leadership approaches or standards? Or LGBT athletes? The sky is the limit.”
I jotted a few notes down as Professor Jennings continued her spiel. My mind was already whirling, ideas beginning to take shape as I noted the criteria I’d need to meet. A lanky basketball player raised his hand. “Professor Jennings?”
Jennings glanced over the rims of her wire glasses, which gave her a stern librarian vibe. “What is it, Mr. Jones?”
“I was wondering, is this, like, a paper we write, or an oral presentation, or…”
“Yes, I was just about to get to that.” The professor didn’ttellEric Jones he should have been patient, but you could hear it in her tone. I smirked as she continued. “This might turn into an analytical report, or it might develop into a visual presentation, or heck, one year, a student created an entire curriculum that they felt belonged in sports education. The thing youmustdo, though, is not only raise a concern, but also answer it. That is what leadership is all about. You must know how to identify strengths and weaknesses in a team or a facility or a program, and then work to enhance the advantages and shore up shortcomings.”
Jennings answered a few more anxiety-laced questions before dismissing us. As class wrapped up, Darnell turned a wary gaze on me. “Man, what the hell are we supposed to do? That project is no joke.”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s not a cakewalk.”
Darnell scoffed. “Pfft, you already have an idea, don’t you?”
My lips quirked. “I just heard the assignment. How would I have an idea already?”
There were some thoughts trying to coalesce in my mind. Losing football had been hard, really hard. Not only because I’d lost financial aid, though that was a big part of it. I’d also lost friends, lost my sense of belonging.
Lostmyself, really.
I wasn’t sure yet what shape my project would take. But I knew that all my upheaval this year would influence it. There had to be more that athletic departments could do for students who’d given years to their program—even if they fucked up like me.
“Nah, I see that smart brain whirring away,” Darnell said as we packed up our notebooks and prepared to leave. “Just do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
