Ryan Court

Classroom

Court maintains a 3.77 GPA in business teacher education. He was named to the Missouri Valley Conference Scholar-Athlete first team in 2009 and 2010 and was an ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-District V choice in 2009. Court has been on the honor roll in each of his semesters at Illinois State and has been on the Dean’s List twice. In 2010, he was the recipient of the Fairchild Endowed Scholarship.

Character

As a high school student-athlete, Court was not recruited by any Division I schools to play baseball. He came to Illinois State as a walk-on in hopes of proving that he was capable of playing Division I college baseball. As a walk-on, Court initially did not earn scholarship money and was told there was little chance that he would ever get playing time. He used this as motivation, and eventually earned a permanent spot in the starting lineup as a scholarship player, and is now considered a possible draft choice. Court uses the same level of motivation in the classroom.

Community

Court has worked on numerous community service projects, including Christmas for Kids, in which he helped organize and participate in activities with under-privileged children to boost their spirits during the holidays. Court participates in Recess Buddies at area junior high schools, where he and other Illinois State student-athletes interact with junior high students during their recess. Court has also carved pumpkins at Oak Dale Elementary with students on Halloween and he participates in the MVC Just Read program, in which he reads a variety of books at different elementary schools in the community.

Competition

Court was one of just two Illinois State players to start all 56 games in 2010, finishing with a .295 batting average and a team-best 10 home runs. He ranked second on the team in RBI (49) and hits (67) and was named second-team All-MVC. Court helped the Redbirds win their first-ever share of the MVC regular-season championship and their first MVC tournament championship since 1994. As a sophomore, Court emerged as one of the Redbirds’ top offensive contributors and started all 48 games, hitting .323 with 53 hits, 40 runs and 41 RBI. He was named honorable-mention All-MVC in 2009.