I didn't know if I'd be good enough or not, so I just wanted to give it my best effort. — Ashlee Pistorius

Ashlee Pistorius is not unlike a great many of her peers who graduated from college and universities across the map in recent weeks. She's working long hours in a new city, all in the hopes of securing full-time employment in an increasingly competitive job market.

It's just that in her case, even a competitive job market is a noticeable improvement on no job market at all.

"I would like to play in the professional league when it opens back up this next spring," Pistorius explained during a break in her office duties. "I wasn't planning on being so far away, but when Mass Premier Soccer gave me this opportunity, I couldn't pass it up."

The all-time leading goal scorer in the history of Texas A&M women's soccer and last year's Honda Award winner as the nation's top collegiate female player, Pistorius is now a prolific, if essentially part-time, soccer player for the W-League's Boston Renegades.  She tallied a goal and an assist in last Saturday’s 6-0 victory over the Fredericksburg Lady Gunners, and the rookie’s five goals in six games are no small part of the team’s 5-1 start.

The organization responsible for the Renegades, Mass Premier Soccer also has a working agreement in place with the Boston Breakers team that will open play next spring in Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS). So when the opportunity arose to complete the requirements for her sports management degree by interning in the team office and get a foot in the door with the Breakers, she packed up her things in Houston and headed to Boston for the summer.

Aside from noting the traffic around Boston is a little more challenging than "good old College Station," she hasn't had much time for culture shock. When she's not on the field herself, she's usually in the office working on logistics for the first team – glamorous stuff like securing the vans and hotels for road trips that others provided in college.

Not that she's complaining.

"My life is this," Pistorius said with almost a note of glee. "We have practice every morning and then I come up to the office. Luckily, the office and where we practice at are right next to each other, so I'm able to come right in. And I work all day and I coach every night. I wake up at 6:30 in the morning [and go] until about 10 at night, and basically after I coach, I go home and finish whatever else I had to finish in the office."

A career in pro sports is something she dreamed of as a kid. An accomplished prep basketball player in Illinois who briefly played both sports at Texas A&M, she was part of a generation that grew up with both the WNBA and WUSA for at least a few years. When she settled on soccer and saw the latter league close up shop, it seemed her own opportunity to follow such a path wouldn't materialize. The reprieve came during her senior season, with the news that the WPS would bring back top-level pro competition.

"It was just automatic; I wanted to play," Pistorius said. "I didn't know if I'd be good enough or not, so I just wanted to give it my best effort. I mean, when we first came into school is when [the WUSA] folded, so we were like, 'Oh, well this is it; this is our college career and that's when we're done with soccer.' And now that here there's a possibility we can play again, it just made us really excited."

Of course, with the excitement comes an understanding of what's ahead. Whether it's players fresh out of college like Pistorius putting things on hold or veterans holding on for one more year of temporary employment, nobody is waiting for a windfall. When Pistorius and her fiancé spend even more months apart or when she returns to Houston this fall and searches for a job to pay the bills while she trains, it's not because she's going to get rich playing soccer. It's with the understanding that the game is still part of who she is.

It's also why a player who thrived in college through displaying that innate finisher's touch around the goal is working on defense rather than basking in her records.

"To be completely honest, I'm a forward and I have a forward mentality that's offense only, so the defensive side of things and being strong in all aspects on the ground, whether it's head, ground, making runs," Pistorius said. "I've been set in this style of how Texas A&M plays, because that's how I've been playing the last four years, and I've got to be acceptable to all styles, whether it's the kick and run or whatnot. I mean, at Texas A&M, we get the ball on the ground and we pass it around, and that's not everyone's style. Going into the professional league, you don't have a choice in styles."

Professional leagues succeed or fail on finances, but any discussion of why that matters has to include stories of people like Pistorius. Encouraged as a kid to believe in big aspirations while watching Michael Jordan but also Mia Hamm, she's pursuing a passion for as long as time and savings accounts will allow. And somewhere, the next Pistorius – or the next great heart surgeon – may be watching.  

"It's been interesting," Pistorius said. "One of my really good friends on the [A&M] soccer team, she's done playing soccer. And I was actually just talking to her this morning, and she was like, ‘I want to go for a run or something.' You know, it's just like you have nothing that you have to do, where we're still playing and we have something to look forward to – and we have to run. And for her, it's kind of a different level. She's going to med school, so it's completely different for her in that regard. It's just funny, the difference. She's growing up and we're still hanging out, wishing we can play soccer."

Graham Hays is an ESPN columnist and a contributor to womensprosoccer.com.  He can be reached at  moonlighthays@gmail.com. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author's, and not necessarily those of Women’s Professional Soccer or womensprosoccer.com.