“Not this year” from a coach is a different sentence than “not ever.” Ask which one you heard.

In the moment a decision lands, the mind rounds it to the worst available meaning, and a delay gets filed as a permanent refusal. Those are very different situations calling for very different responses. One means do the work and come back. The other means look elsewhere, and which one you are in is usually knowable, usually only by asking the person who said it.

Ask the plain version outright: is this about this season, or about me. Most people answer honestly if you make it easy to. Then plan against the real answer rather than the one you assembled on the way home.