Can I play baseball as a grad student?

Athletic Recruits
1

<p>I am a current college senior 2 semesters away from graduating. I play baseball, and I have played on the club baseball (NCBA) team at my university for the past 2 years. Basically, it is a low level college baseball where we play other major university's club teams, completely funded and ran by students. However, we do play a lot of the local junior colleges, so we do indeed see good competition. </p>

<p>Anyways, the reason why I never pursued college baseball directly after high school is because I was a below average player back then, and because of that, I never had any offers, so I decided to attend university. Two years into university, I discovered we had a competitive club program, so I decided to join that. I have gotten a lot better since high school, I have continued to work out and practice really hard as I still had the dream of playing at a higher level. I feel that I've gotten a lot better, as my fastball is now in the mid to high-80's range (couldn't throw past 75 in high school), and I have much better control of all my pitches. I am a very hard worker and have a huge passion for the game, and I will not stop working hard to achieve my goals. </p>

<p>Anyways, I graduate in December of 2014, and was wondering what my college sports eligibility like? I will be 22 years old when I graduate. Since I never actually played for a "true" college team, only club, will I still be able to play as a grad student somewhere? Will I still have eligibility? I understand I have 4 years of eligibility once I start college, but like I said before, I have never played for a "true" college team, so basically I was just a regular student throughout my college years. Is D1 or D2 baseball worth pursuing if I wanted to play as a grad student somewhere? I've been debating between playing as a grad student (if I can), or trying out for an independent baseball league after college.</p>

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<p>You will need to check with NCAA for your eligiblity. My first guess is that you have (when you start college) 4 years of eligibility (for school’s NCAA team or NAIA, etc). If you have not used those years, I <em>think</em> that you can still play, even as a grad student. I certainly know of grad students on for example, a basketball team (having had red-shirt years), although they were “on the team” as undergrad.</p>

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<p>For NCAA there is a five year window where you can compete for four years. Your window started when you started college if you were enrolled full time. Assuming you are graduating in 4 years then you would have 1 year of eligibility left per NCAA rules.
Of course double check that with NCAA… good luck</p>