Garrett Hicks already left. He signed with the Sioux City Explorers of the American Association, made his professional debut, and then walked back through the Arizona door for what Michael Lev of the Arizona Daily Star framed as a “last dance” — a fifth college season the Colorado courts said the Class of 2022 had coming. Friday morning the Tenth Circuit handed the NCAA a stay of that ruling, and the man who led the Wildcats in saves is now legally fogged in.
I have watched this league manufacture eligibility chaos for decades, and I am telling you plain: locking one high school class out of a five-for-five window the NCAA itself designed was always going to end in courtrooms and frozen careers. Hicks is living proof.
He is a Buckeye product out of Verrado High, Class of 2022, two seasons at Pima Community College, then Arizona. In 2026 he went 3-2 with a 3.94 ERA across 21 appearances, six saves, 28 strikeouts in 29.2 innings, All-Big 12 Honorable Mention on a club that finished 19-34 and missed the conference tournament. That was supposed to be the end. Then Colorado opened a door. Hicks took it. The stay just kicked the jamb.
The Football Guys Got a Statement. Hicks Got Silence.
Arizona Athletics moved fast on the football side. Ismail Mahdi and Max Harris, both potentially exposed by the same Colorado class action, “remain eligible” and “will continue to practice with our football team as we continue to monitor the judicial process.” That is the official language. Hicks received no parallel public shield. Coverage noted he “could be at least temporarily ineligible for a fifth season if he is only relying on the Colorado class action lawsuit.”
Michael Lev captured the mess without flinching: “The latest court ruling suggests that Arizona football players Max Harris and Ismail Mahdi and baseball player Garrett Hicks – all presumed to be eligible for a fifth season – are in limbo pending the next ruling. What a complete and utter mess.”
A complete and utter mess is exactly right. Baseball’s calendar sits further out than football’s, which buys Hicks time the gridiron guys do not have. Time is not eligibility. Time is just waiting while lawyers brief an expedited appeal. Chip Hale cannot build a 2027 bullpen around a docket number.
I said the five-for-five carve-out would spawn exactly this the moment the NCAA drew the line against the 2022 class. The organization created a five-year window starting with high school graduation or a 19th birthday, then treated one cohort like they had already used too much of the future. Colorado’s district court called that what it was and opened the class. The Tenth Circuit stayed the injunction. Pending further proceedings, kids who finished four seasons are back on the wrong side of the ledger.
Colorado Cover Is Not Georgia Cover
Darren Heitner, the Florida attorney who filed the Georgia suit that still protects Arizona basketball’s RJ Godfrey, told the Star the stay has “no effect on state cases.” Godfrey has a different order. Hicks appears to be riding the Colorado class. That distinction is now the entire game for a right-hander who already tasted independent ball and still chose one more year in Tucson.
The NCAA has spent the last stretch doing everything it can to keep athletes from converting court wins into actual games. Godfrey’s filing said it out loud about basketball: “In short, despite court’s order, the NCAA is doing everything it can to keep these athletes from playing basketball.” Swap the sport and the sentence still lands. Hicks threw 15 scoreless outings last spring. He was the stopper after Tony Pluta went down. He earned honorable mention on a bad team. None of that moves a stay.
This is about more than one reliever’s innings. It is about whether a Class of 2022 kid gets the same window the NCAA sold everyone else, or whether the organization keeps litigating seasons these athletes already lived. Hicks signed a pro contract, came home, and now a federal panel is deciding if the last dance even starts. That is an affront to the idea that rules should be legible before a player spends four years under them.
I have watched enough college baseball to know bullpens run on trust and planned innings. A pitcher in limbo is a roster hole with a court date. Arizona can keep monitoring the judicial process. Hicks already made his choice once when he left Sioux City. The courts get the next one. The NCAA gets to explain why a six-save closer from a 19-34 team became the hill worth dying on. While they argue, the kid who did the work sits in the fog they created.
