A college baseball player quits school, then wins an Olympic gold medal, enjoys a long MLB playing career and ends up as a successful coach. Why bother returning to college more than 20 years later to finish the degree?
Adam Everett had several reasons, including a special one — his mom.
“I was the first in my family to go to college,” Everett says, “and my mom had always asked me to finish my degree. I considered college coaching, and having a degree is almost always a prerequisite, so that was a reason, too, and I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. But it was mainly my mom prompting it.”
Everett played baseball for Coach Ray Tanner at the University of South Carolina in the mid-1990s and was selected in the first round of the 1998 MLB draft. After a few tours of duty in the minor leagues, he became the Houston Astros’ starting shortstop. After successful stints with several MLB teams, Everett hung up his cleats in 2012 and embarked on a new career as an infield instructor. He’s now the minor league infield coordinator for the Philadelphia Phillies.
In 2017, at age 40, Everett came back to Carolina to finish his degree. Rather, the university came to him in the form of Palmetto College, the university’s degree-completion program for students who can’t attend in-person classes.
“I basically went to school year-round until I finished, and I can tell you one thing: It was the best experience I ever had in school. We had four kids at home, and it can be overwhelming, especially when you’re my age going back. But they made the steps straightforward, and the professors were very patient.”
Everett was an infield coordinator for the Atlanta Braves at the time he started his coursework, and he finished two years later to receive his diploma in the university’s fall 2019 commencement ceremony in Columbia. Along with his wife, children and parents, several close friends were there to cheer him on.
“I basically went to school year-round until I finished, and I can tell you one thing: It was the best experience I ever had in school,” says Everett, who earned a bachelor’s in interdisciplinary studies. “We had four kids at home, and it can be overwhelming, especially when you’re my age going back. But they made the steps straightforward, and the professors were very patient. [Former Palmetto College chancellor] Susan Elkins was just amazing in the whole process. She told me, ‘You can do it!’”
Everett, who lives in Kennesaw, Georgia, works with plenty of young baseball players in the Phillies’ minor league system, some of whom, like him, started but never finished college.
“My playing career is over, but I had a lot of help getting to the peak of my career, and I really want to help them succeed. That’s what makes it fun for me,” Everett says. “Some of these guys are special and play at the highest level in the sport, and that’s because they’re motivated. And that’s what will make some of them do what I did — finish what they started.”