4. CHAPTER 4
Livia
The Wildfire auditorium in the performance facility is overwhelming.
Stadium-style tiered seating rises from the front in graduated rows, every chair wide and padded in mocha leather with the Wildfire crest embossed into the headrest in burnt orange and forest green.
The screen at the front is enormous—wall to wall, floor to ceiling, capable of splitting into three independent panels and running separate feeds simultaneously.
Coaching monitors are discreetly mounted around the perimeter so whoever is presenting never has to turn their back on the room.
Right now, all the screens are filled with the Wildfire logo on a slow rotating loop, a continuous branding of this team.
I’m standing at the front with head coach Colter Monahan and one of the assistant coaches, Van Turner, while the team files in.
In the back of the room, Juno Paxton is set up with her cameraman, Evan, ready to document the rise of the league’s newest expansion team. We were introduced yesterday and I really like her.
We met for coffee in the Blue Line, the team restaurant tucked into the east wing of the performance center. We spent almost an hour there and I found her easy to talk to. She’s sharp and funny and completely unpretentious.
Juno is an award-winning documentarian—independent work mostly, but she’s good enough that she’s already sporting Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations.
Patrick hired her to document the Wildfire’s inaugural season from the inside.
He gave her full access, no editorial control from the organization, which reveals a lot about the kind of owner he is.
He’s not trying to produce a PR piece but rather wants the real thing captured.
What I didn’t expect about Juno was the other thing she told me, almost as an aside.
She and Crosby Hale, the team’s starting goalie, are together.
The star player and the woman with full documentary access to every corner of this organization—dating.
I kept my expression neutral because it wasn’t my reaction to have, but I filed it away.
Patrick knows and obviously sanctions it, which provides useful context for how he thinks about the intersection of professional and personal on this team—that he’s not reflexively opposed to it, that he weighs things on their actual merit rather than a blanket policy.
Juno waves at me from across the expanse of the auditorium. Yesterday she explained the releases I had to sign to allow her to film me and obtained detailed info about my background.
I wave back at her.
“How are you finding everything so far?” Coach Monahan asks.
He’s got a paper coffee cup in one hand and the rigid posture of a man who hates meetings and would prefer to be out on the ice.
I met him and the rest of the staff several months ago when I interviewed and we’re all just now getting acquainted.
Lucky for me, everyone has been incredibly welcoming and receptive to my work.
“It’s perfect,” I say, and mean it. “I may never leave.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “Patrick has that effect on people. Treating you so well right off the bat you feel obligated to earn it.”
“Is that his strategy?”
“One of them.” He glances toward the door where players are still trickling in. “Van, you know if Dunn’s going to make it this morning?”
Van shakes his head. He’s quieter than Monahan, younger than I expected, and recently retired from the Pittsburgh Titans. “Trainer had him at six so he should be here.”
“Good.” Monahan looks back at me. “We’ll give you about fifteen minutes, enough to introduce yourself and take a few questions. These guys warm up fast when they feel like they’re not being managed.”
“That’s all I need,” I say.
Today is my introduction to the team and I’m admittedly a little nervous.
Players come in mostly loose and unhurried, dropping into seats in clusters of three and four. They’re talking with ease, many of them laughing. A pair of younger guys sit up slightly straighter than everyone else. I’ll learn all their names and personalities eventually, but now… I observe.
I notice Locke comes in without looking at anyone.
He scans the room once—quick, comprehensive—and then chooses an isolated seat.
Not in the way back, not in the corner, just positioned with three empty seats between himself and the nearest cluster of teammates.
It’s enough space to be unreachable and because he sits on the end, the message is he doesn’t want to be sociable.
He pulls out his phone and scrolls. No one looks at him twice and no one attempts to sit near him.
I note all of this while nodding at what Van is saying about the afternoon schedule.
Monahan checks his watch, makes a coment to Van, and moves to the main podium at the front. The room settles without being asked, which tells me he runs a tight ship. Not one player is late, not even Dunn who comes straight from rehab with an ice pack on his shoulder.
“All right.” The coach’s voice carries without effort, a microphone not required in the cavernous room.
“Quick rundown before we get into it—morning skate at ten, film at one, and I want everyone in the weight room by three. No exceptions, no creative scheduling.” He scans his notes, looks back up at the room.
“Now… I want to take a few minutes to introduce someone who joined our staff this week.” He glances briefly at me.
“Livia Cross has been hired as the team’s Director of Human Performance.
There’s a lot that goes with that title, but she’s here to make great athletes exceptionally better.
It’s a resource that very few of our competitors employ and Patrick Rowe is the type of boss that will do whatever he can to give us an edge. ”
He pauses and looks around the room to make sure he has everyone’s attention. My eyes go to Locke Donovan who is watching and listening, but his face is stony.
Coach looks back down to his notes and starts reading them. “Livia has the educational chops to back up her talents.”
I tune out as he goes over my educational background and work history. It’s been thrown out there a lot, because it lends some level of credibility to my position, which is a job that most people have a hard time understanding.
Coach looks up again. “Know this… Livia is a tool and you should use her. The organizations doing this kind of work are winning more than the ones that aren’t and I, for one, want to be ahead of the curve. We’re lucky to have her. Livia.”
I step up and forty-seven sets of eyes are pinned on me. Some curious, some politely blank, some running the quiet calculation of whether this is worth their time. I get that.
I don’t seek out Locke, but I can guess what his expression looks like.
I move to stand in front of the podium. I don’t need it. I’m five foot nine and can easily see over it, but I don’t believe in walls and barriers.
I stand with my hands loose at my sides.
“I think people hear my educational credentials and can be impressed by them, but does that translate into real-world experience? In my case, I can tell you it does, because before I am anything, I am an athlete. I played D1 field hockey, taking the Bruins to back-to-back national championships. My current obsession is obstacle course racing and I’m going to be putting together a Wildfire team if any of you want to join me.
” I can see a few smiles of interest because while races like Tough Mudder and Spartan are brutal, they’re a hell of a lot of fun.
“I’ve worked with athletes across eight sports at the professional level, and I’ve been doing this long enough to know that the difference between a good athlete and a great one almost never lives in the body but rather lives in the mind. ”
I start a slow pace along the front of the room.
“Now… I know that sounds like the kind of thing someone says right before they ask you to close your eyes and picture a beach.” Several of the men chuckle.
“That is not what I do. What I do is applied science—sleep architecture, stress response, recovery optimization and a dozen other fixes for the problems that can slow us down. The mental and physical are not separate systems, they affect each other constantly, and when you understand how they interact, you can make gains that the weight room alone will never give you.”
The team is quiet, politely so, but I can see on their faces that they’re intrigued.
“I’m here for all of you,” I continue. “My door is open, everything we discuss is between us, and I don’t report to anyone about individual sessions.
” I pause, because that matters and I want it to be clear I’m their advocate.
“I’m not here to evaluate you or build a case about anyone.
I’m here to help you perform better at a job you’ve already proven you’re exceptional at. ”
Crosby, the team’s captain, raises his hand. He’s one of the few I know by fame recognition. “What does a typical session actually look like?” he asks. “Like practically… what are we walking into when we come see you?”
Good question. The kind that opens the door for everyone else in the room who was wondering the same thing but wasn’t going to ask first.
“Depends entirely on what you need,” I say, tucking my hands into the pockets of my track pants.
“First session is always a conversation—I want to understand where you are, what you’re working on, what’s getting in the way.
From there it could be anything from visualization and focus work to sleep and recovery protocols to reviewing your physical movement patterns and identifying inefficiencies.
Some guys come once and take what they need.
Some work with me on an ongoing basis. There’s no template because you’re not the same athlete as the man sitting next to you. ”
Crosby nods slowly, and I can see him processing it before filing it away with a nod of appreciation. “I’ll be hitting you up.”
“Looking forward to it,” I assure him, grateful the team’s leader is on board.
The man next to Crosby stands, looking at me with an amused smile.
He’s handsome with medium-length hair in various shades of brown to gold, textured and pushed back from his face.
He’s got a strong jaw and slashing, heavy brows that give him an intense look, but his brown eyes are warm and filled with mischief.
“Hello… I’m Arch Hewitt and I have a quick question,” he says, teeth flashing in a grin.
“Completely hypothetical… if a person—a total stranger, not me—were to have a very specific issue with, say, overthinking shootout attempts to the point where he’s basically narrating his own failure in real time while it’s happening…
” He pauses, looks around at his mates and then back to me with raised, hopeful eyebrows.
“Could you theoretically help that stranger?”
The room erupts in laughter, and I can’t help but join. “Theoretically,” I say, matching his register exactly. “That’s one of the most common and fixable performance issues I work with. Tell your stranger to come see me.”
“I’ll pass that along,” Arch says solemnly and sits back down. “To the stranger.”
More laughter, even from the coaches. I take a quick glance at Locke, who unsurprisingly, is not laughing, but he’s not zoned out. He’s watching and listening, and I’m sure none of this is making a difference to his antipathy.
I field a few more questions and answer each one straight, no jargon, no oversell. By the time we’re wrapping up, I can tell I’ll have a few visitors this week.
Coach Monahan reminds everyone to be timely to the ice and then the meeting is adjourned. The players file out and I take my shot with Locke when he starts to walk by me. I step in front of him, offer a bright smile. “Good to see you again.”
His eyes roam over me dispassionately. “No offense, but I can’t say the same.”
“Ouch. Are you always this surly?”
“Yup.”
“Even more reason we need to get our first official session set up,” I say, pulling my phone out and accessing my calendar. “I know you’ve got a road trip, but the Tuesday or Wednesday after—”
“Doesn’t work for me.”
“Which one?”
“Either.”
I look at him and he stares back with the patience of a man who has decided to wait me out.
“You pick the day then,” I say with a syrupy smile.
“I’ll check my schedule,” he says and brushes past me.
We both know he won’t.
“I’ll follow up with you,” I say to his retreating back.
“That looked productive,” I hear Coach say from behind me.
Monahan is currently the youngest head coach in the league at just thirty-three years and the organization is taking a gamble on him. He’s striking with classic good looks but it’s the easy way he carries his authority that makes him attractive all the way around.
“He’s a pistol,” I quip with a smile.
Colter nods slowly. “I can get involved if you want. Make it clear to him that this isn’t optional, or I can have Van talk to him.
Van’s the only one he actually”—he seems to search for the right word—“tolerates. They work out together before the sun rises sometimes. It’s about as close to a relationship as Locke has with anyone on this staff. ”
I consider that. The image of Locke Donovan at five in the morning in an empty weight room speaks to a loneliness that he’s clearly comfortable with.
“Not yet,” I say. “Let me try to reach him first.”
Colter studies me for a second before nodding. “All right. My door’s open if you need help.”
“Appreciate it,” I say as he walks away.
I stand in the auditorium, considering my next move.
I have a feeling that Locke Donovan is going to be the most difficult person I’ll have tried to help in my young but successful career.
Good thing I don’t scare easily.