9781250209153

In the first week of February, our principal finally makes the
announcement: Nominations for Student Athlete of the Year will be
announced at the end of the day.
“Holy shit,” Danielle says as we’re sitting in morning homeroom. “I
wonder how Irene’s feeling.”
I look up from the final version of her Common App essay, which she
submitted last week, where I’ve been reading about how nervous Danielle
was before our season opener. She has somehow managed to write about
coaching our team in a way that is both powerful and humble. I’ve only
counted one self-deprecating remark, and she’d written it in parentheses, so
I count that as progress.
“She probably feels the way she does before a routine,” I say. “Anxious
but excited.”
Danielle taps one of her color-coding highlighters on the desk. “God, I
hope she gets it.”
“Me too.” I run through the list of possible candidates in my head, trying
to see who could knock her out of the running. She has to be nominated
with everything she does for both squads, right?
At lunch, the nominations are all anyone can talk about. Gunther and
Danielle confirm they voted for Irene during preliminary ballots last week,
but Kevin refuses to say who he voted for. We bug him over and over, but
it’s no use; he keeps repeating “A man’s conscience is his own private
terrain,” until Gunther squirts a ketchup packet at him.
By the time I get to Senior Horizons that afternoon, my stomach is in
knots. I’m so nervous for Irene that I feel like it’s my nomination on the
line. But when I glance across the room at her, she is poised and steely as
ever. It’s not until we briefly meet each other’s eyes that I recognize her
nerves. I nod encouragingly until she nods back.
When the end-of-day announcements finally come on, our principal
prattles on about useless minutiae, plus another empty warning about
messing with the marquee, before he clears his throat and announces the
SAOY candidates.