Former Major League Baseball player finally completes bachelor’s degree at UCSB after 18 years

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Current Gaucho and former major league baseball player Ryan Spilborghs finally completed his bachelor's degree at UCSB after an 18 year unplanned break.

UCSB said Spilborghs studied sociology at the university while he played as an outfielder for the Gauchos.

However, when Spilborghs was just a few classes shy of his degree requirements, he signed on to play baseball with the Colorado Rockies.

Despite the change, it was not Spilborghs' plan to stop pursuing his degree. His contract with the Rockies even included a provision that paid for his remaining college work and he used it to take a few more classes at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“I was really close, and then I realized I was missing a prerequisite, which was a Spanish course,” said Spilborghs.

According to a release from UCSB, Spilborghs' mother was from Guatemala and spoke passable spanish. But Spilborghs' baseball career had other plans.

As the season became more demanding and finding a spanish course that fit his schedule became increasingly difficult, Spilborghs ended up putting his degree on the back burner.

“So I was kind of between a rock and a hard place trying to get it done,” Spilborghs said. “It was really frustrating. And so I ended up taking a year of online Spanish — I won’t give away the online school — but it didn’t transfer to UCSB.”

Finally, after 18 years had passed since Spilborghs left UCSB's campus, he enrolled in an online spanish class with Santa Barbara City College and passed - satisfying his final degree requirement.

“After 21 years I finally graduated from UC Santa Barbara — from my hometown,” he said.

After completing his bachelor's, Spilborghs used his renewed motivation to enroll in an online MBA program with the University of Denver.

“Honestly, at this point, I’m not sure what I will use it for,” he said. “I think it’s OK to not have a plan, you know, like I don’t have to have a destination yet; I’m enjoying the journey. So I’ll figure out what that means down the road. But right now I’m totally comfortable with just taking the course and seeing where it goes.”

UCSB explained that Spilborghs finished his baseball career at the age of 33, choosing to put his wife and two children first in his life.

In regard to becoming a professional baseball player, Spilborghs said, “your job is to be away from your family. It is to miss out on birthdays and anniversaries. Those are the costs of doing the job, which I love, but that takes a toll and you have to pay for it at some point ... At some point you’ve got to know when to say when, and what matters most. And so I picked family over baseball.”