Adam Goldner faced a choice many spring sport student-athletes encountered earlier this year. Few probably took a class that helped prepare them to do so. 

“This course has two objectives,” the syllabus for Decisions Processes, OIDD 290, in the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business states. “The first is to improve the quality of your decisions.” 

According to Goldner, the course focused more on the “typical heuristics” that deter an investor’s decision making process. Upon further examination, though, he concluded there were more parallels than he originally considered between the course’s lessons and his decision to return to Penn for a fifth year. 

“When people are investing, they can be trading based on their emotions,” Goldner said. “Obviously going through the pandemic and season cancellation, it was a very emotional time. I definitely tried to kind of remove that factor from it. But at the same time, it's an inherent part of the decision.”

On March 11, after the Ivy League decided to cancel spring sports due to the COVID-19 pandemic and after the Quakers staged one last intra-squad scrimmage, Goldner lingered on the field where he spent so much time the last four years. 

He wished he could stop the hands of the wrought iron clock perched atop the scoreboard. 

Or at least slow them down. 

“My eyes looked over Penn’s athletic pantheon trying to memorize its details as if it was my first time seeing it, or the last as a Penn lacrosse player,” Goldner wrote in an essay titled “2020 Vision” for Penn’s website.

When Goldner got back to his locker, he had texts from people he hadn’t talked to in years saying they were so sorry. He believed his college lacrosse career was over. In the following weeks and months, he felt like he was constantly holding his breath. There were more questions than answers, even after the NCAA granted eligibility relief and Penn stated they were willing to work with spring student-athletes so they could be eligible for the 2021 season. So much felt out of Goldner’s control. 

He was not without options. He could have moved on to the job he had already accepted at J.P. Morgan, where he had interned the previous summer. He could have graduated with his classmates and taken a fifth year at a school outside the Ivy League, like Kyle Thornton and Kyle Gallagher did. They transferred to Notre Dame. Goldner did not consider that possibility. 

“For me, it was never looking anywhere else,” he said. “It was always about coming back to Penn.”

Goldner divided his decision into financial, career and lacrosse considerations. In his free time when he wasn’t taking virtual classes, he communicated with the compliance office and Penn’s Center for Athlete Success. He had countless conversations with different administrators, coaches and alumni. He worked through the logistics of adding another concentration — akin to a major at Wharton — in finance to preserve his undergraduate status. 

He also continued training as if he was coming back to Penn. Every afternoon during the time slot the Quakers usually had practice, Goldner performed bodyweight circuit exercises and played wall ball on the exposed brick siding of his off-campus apartment. Even if the season was canceled, he wanted to set an example for the rest of the team about the resilience and discipline needed to navigate this challenging landscape. 

Penn coach Mike Murphy still remembers the call when Goldner informed him of his decision to return. Though his understated star attackman excels in tight spaces between the lines, Murphy made sure to give Goldner his distance. He told him that he very much wanted him back, but only if it was the right thing for him.

“Even if he is a first-round draft pick in the PLL, there’s no way they’re paying what J.P. Morgan's paying. So from a financial standpoint, he's making a sacrifice for this year, at least,” Murphy said. “But I think he was able to take a step back and look at it a little more broadly and realize this is something he’ll be happy he did 10 or 20 years from now. I credit him for having the maturity to do that.” 

The 5-foot-9, 180-pound attackman whose greatest asset on the field is his lightning quick release was patient and steady in his approach long before he broke Penn’s single-season scoring record with 56 goals in 2019 and helped the Quakers to their first NCAA quarterfinal appearance since 1989. 

The first time Murphy talked with Goldner in his office overlooking Franklin Field, they connected right away. Murphy felt he’d be a great fit for the program because of his style of play, but more so because of his personality. The feeling was mutual. Goldner, who was 14 at the time, returned to campus several more times over the ensuing months. He even sat in on an hour-and-a-half astronomy lecture. 

“He was very methodical in terms of deciding where he's going to go to college just as he was about coming back with this fifth year,” Murphy said. 

Goldner committed to Penn in the spring of his sophomore year at Malvern Prep (Pa.). 

Ask those who have coached or played with Goldner to describe him, and ‘committed’ is the word you’ll hear most often. ‘Dedicated’ is a close second.  

“My first impression when I met him was, he is definitely a man with a plan,” Malvern Prep coach John McEvoy said. “He was very serious about lacrosse and set the stage for a lot of people about what great would be.”

While McEvoy soon noticed Goldner’s high intelligence for offense as the only freshman on the varsity team in 2013 and his uncanny sense to find open seams in a defense, it was the drive that Goldner took from Allentown to Malvern every day that most personified his work ethic. 

"It's every bit of an hour from here, and it's not an easy hour," McEvoy said of the 65-mile commute and the reason Goldner elected to wear the No. 2 at Malvern — representing the two hours he spent in a car every day to play lacrosse at the Philadelphia powerhouse. "It’s intensive. You have to take the turnpike. You have to get on the Northeast Extension. I don’t know if I would let my kids make that drive."

Goldner carpooled with three other families until his senior year, when he got his license and his family bought a Hyundai Sonata from their neighbors. He added more than 100,000 miles to the odometer before graduation. He also had perfect attendance that year. He still has the plaque commemorating the accomplishment. 

In his remarks last spring when Goldner received the Class of 1915 Award — presented to the senior male student-athlete who best exemplifies the spirit and tradition of Penn athletics — Murphy noted that many people gauge success based on winning championships, accolades and other external validations. In reality he believes a truer measure is when you look back on your career and ask yourself how close you actually came to meeting your potential.

“In 30 years of coaching, I'm not sure I've been around too many people that have done more to maximize their abilities and prepare for games like Adam has,” Murphy said. “He’s highly talented and skilled, but how thoroughly he works to improve and prepare himself is what sets him apart.” 

Whenever Penn defenseman Mark Evanchick arrived at practice last fall or in the spring, he’d noticed Goldner was already out there practicing shooting with one or two freshmen. He’d spend time after practice, too, helping the younger players pick up on the intricacies of assistant coach Mike Abbott’s offense. 

“Adam is as great of a leader as I’ve been around in my lacrosse career,” Evanchick said. “He’s constantly pushing everybody else to be better and bringing kids along, especially underclassmen, to do the right thing the right way, as Coach Murphy says.” 

“One of our mantras is, ‘All In,’” Murphy said. “Nobody is more all in than Adam.”

Though usually reserved in his demeanor, every day after stretching and before practice, Goldner hammered home the point to his teammates that as hard as they worked in 2019 to make the NCAA quarterfinals, it wasn’t enough. The Quakers had one of the most successful seasons in program history and became just the third team in Ivy League history to sweep the regular season and tournament championships. 

Still, they needed to work harder if they wanted to take the next step and finish what the class of 2019 started. They needed to treat every practice as if it were their last. Even in the huddle when they had what felt like a comfortable lead against Duke — a 14-11 win Feb. 22 — Goldner told his teammates not to get complacent. 

“Coach Murphy taught us that your friend isn’t going to help you get better, but your teammate will,” Evanchick said. “Adam takes that to heart. He’s going to tell you what you need to hear whether you like it or not. You have to respect that.” 

Goldner said he’s been impressed by the entire team’s commitment to an “entrepreneurial” approach to this fall. Since Penn did not announce all classes would be held virtually until Aug. 11, almost all of the team had already signed housing leases. The freshman wanted to be in the area, too, so the upperclassmen helped them find apartments in Philadelphia. 

Because the campus and its training facilities have been closed, many scavenged weights and equipment from home to build a makeshift gym in the basement of the Locust Street house where most of the sophomores live.

Even though they can’t all be together in person, they’ve organized film sessions to break down more recent Penn games and historic ones like Syracuse’s stunning comeback win over Cornell in the 2009 NCAA championship game. That was the first college game Goldner ever watched. As a kid, he dreamed of playing on that type of stage. 

“We’ve definitely done what we can with what we have,” Goldner said of the Quakers’ resourcefulness and positive outlook. “We’ve been trying to spend time together because guys’ mental health is very important. It feels good to lean on someone who’s going through the same thing.”

While Goldner said he feels like a member of the current senior class, one of the ways he stays connected with the class of 2020, including Gallagher and Thornton, is through their fantasy football league called “Alumni Quacks.” Goldner is currently tied for second with Evanchick. They face each other this weekend. 

“Adam is projected to win by two points, but I don’t look too much into projections,” Evanchick said. “I believe I’ll be coming out on top.”

The fifth year is no longer a fantasy for Goldner. But after the long and winding road of the past seven months, he has tried not to dwell on what it will feel like to play on Franklin Field again with the teammates that mean so much to him. 

“That is the end goal,” Goldner said. “But I’ve tried to focus more on the process of how to get there first and doing everything I can to be ready when that day comes.”