NCAA Gets Rare Court Win in Georgia Baseball Case

The NCAA secured a rare win in court Friday against a former Georgia baseball player.

Outfielder Dylan Goldstein was seeking a ruling that would let him play another year with the Bulldogs, after several suits have opened the door for time spent in junior college to not count against athletes’ eligibility clocks. Judge Tripp Self declined to grant Goldstein a temporary restraining order that would let him play.

The lawsuit is similar to Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia’s successful one against the NCAA. After a judge ruled in Pavia’s favor, the NCAA gave the junior college a blanket waiver for an extra year in 2025–2026, but Goldstein is a few months too early to qualify.

Goldstein’s lawyers filed the lawsuit Feb. 18, right before the college baseball season started. Self ruled that the request wasn’t granted because Goldstein “failed to provide that the bylaws he challenges have a substantial anticompetitive effect,” according to the court filing. And while NCAA rules impact Goldstein, “he has not alleged any facts or presented any evidence showing how they produce a market-wide impact,” the ruling said. 

Self went on to write that “Goldstein does not have a likelihood of success on the merits of an antitrust claim, and he fails to meet his burden for what is vastly known as such an extraordinary and drastic remedy.”

Goldstein played one year at Chipola College before transferring to Division I Florida Atlantic. He played a season for the Owls before transferring to Georgia, where he played the 2024 season as a graduate student. He hit .273 for a team that made NCAA Super Regionals. 

Louis Cohan, who represented Goldstein, said in an earlier court filing that the NCAA’s blanket waiver “was poorly worded” to omit a player such as Goldstein from it. 

A. Andre Hendrick, who represented the NCAA, said Goldstein was “opportunistically trying to take advantage [of the Pavia case] at a time when his career at Georgia had run its course.”

In a hearing earlier this week, Hendrick argued that granting the temporary restraining order could “open the floodgates to any sport that starts in the spring.”

Cohan told the Athens Banner-Herald that they’re “obviously disappointed in the result and we’re exploring options.”