Virginia Lacrosse's Ricky Miezan Denied Final Year of Eligibility by NCAA
The unique and accomplished collegiate athletic career of Ricky Miezan has come to an end. Needing to be approved a waiver by the NCAA in order to play one more season of men's lacrosse at Virginia next spring, the former Stanford linebacker announced on Instagram on Thursday morning that the NCAA has denied him his final year of eligibility.
"Unfortunately, the NCAA has denied me my last year of eligibility," Miezan wrote in the social media post. "Tough blow to not be able to end things the way I would have liked to, but I leave the field knowing I poured everything I had into it."
A native of Alexandria, Virginia, Miezan was recruited as both a football player and a lacrosse player coming out of high school and was at one point the No. 1 overall lacrosse recruit in his class. Miezan ultimately chose the football route and spent five seasons at Stanford, where he eventually stepped into a starting role and was even named team captain in his final season in 2022. In 29 career games played, Miezan tallied 123 tackles, 14.5 tackles for loss, and six sacks. Though Miezan was at Stanford for five seasons, he only played the entire season (or went beyond the four-game redshirt limit) twice.
Miezan then made the decision to return to the sport of lacrosse and transferred to Virginia last winter. It was always going to be something of a project to get Miezan back to peak lacrosse form after spending so many years away from the sport. And so Miezan and the Cavaliers had hoped that the NCAA would grant him a waiver to play another season in 2024. Instead, Miezan's college lacrosse career comes to an end after just one season at Virginia, a season that saw him appear in 16 games, tallying nine points on seven goals and two assists.
Subscribe to the Cavaliers Now Newsletter to receive UVA sports news in your inbox first thing on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
See more Virginia men's lacrosse news and content: Virginia Men's Lacrosse on Sports Illustrated
See more Virginia sports news and content: Virginia Cavaliers on Sports Illustrated
To stay up to date on all Virginia Cavaliers sports news, follow CavaliersNow on social media:
Facebook: @CavaliersNow
Twitter: @CavaliersNowFN