Mark Kingston Said Gamecock Seniors Are Weighing Their Options

Spring sport athletes were granted an extra year of eligibility, and South Carolina baseball coach Mark Kingston said his seniors are deciding or not to use it.

One of the first major decisions made by the NCAA after the sports shutdown was to extend eligibility to spring sports student-athletes affected.

South Carolina head baseball coach Mark Kingston said he felt it was a good call on the NCAA’s part.

“I think it was the right decision,” he said. “I think the student-athletes deserve to play four years of completion. Immediately, right out of the gate they announced the seniors would be able to come back and play their fourth year and I think the right decision was made to allow everybody else in college athletes that had missed their season to regain that year so that they could engage of four years of competition.”

For the Gamecocks, that means they could have an extra year George Callil, Graham and Dallas Beaver and Bryant Bowen. Kingston said the four are looking to move on and play professionally, but with the new MLB agreement condensing the draft from 40 rounds to just five, no one had made a final decision yet.

“I think all four of them are hoping to be able to move on to professional baseball at this point,” he said. “I also think that they understand with a five-round draft that may not be in the cards yet. I think they’re all going to continue to weigh their options. I think all four, there’s a possibility that they could come back. There’s a possibility they some could move on to professional baseball. But they all have interest in coming back at this point, but they want to weigh their options and make sure they’re all making the right decisions moving forward.”

Kingston added that the new draft format could change the entire landscape of college baseball.

 “The challenge for all college baseball coaches around the country now will be to manage your roster get within the compliance limits that we all have,” he said. “A big piece of that is the Major League Draft which has shrunk from 40 rounds to 5 at this point. So you may see more high school kids attending college. You’re probably going to see a lot more seniors and juniors returning to college that would’ve normally moved on to pro baseball. So that is a challenge for coaches around the country is how to manage the roster situation."

He added that there are a number of factors for seniors granted that extra year of eligibility to consider, incuding cost.

“There’s a lot of cost involved,” he said. “We need to remember that even if we’re able to put guys on the same scholarships they were on last year, we’re not a full scholarship sport. So there’s still pretty heavy price to pay for seniors around the country even if they are on scholarship.”