Redshirt (college sports)

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Redshirt is a term used in American college athletics. Typically, a student-athlete has four years of eligibility in a given sport, to coincide with the standard four-year calendar for obtaining a bachelor's degree. For various reasons, some student-athletes opt to not compete with the team for one of their four years attending a university but to only attend classes and practices with the team; this process is known as redshirting. The student-athlete does not use one of his or her four years of eligibility in that season. Using this mechanism, a student-athlete has up to five academic years to use the four years of eligibility, thus creating the phenomenon of "Fifth Year Seniors". However, each student-athlete has at most four years of actual competition with the varsity team.

The term is often used as a verb: a coach may choose to redshirt a player.

[edit] Reasons

There are multiple reasons a student-athlete may redshirt. A student-athlete may redshirt to gain a year of practice with the team prior to participating in competition. In football, a student-athlete may redshirt to add size prior to participating since football tends to favor larger players. Since the college years coincide with the typical completion of physical maturity, using a year of eligibility in the fifth college year is generally more beneficial to the team and to the student-athlete's potential professional prospects than it is to use the same year of eligibility in the first college year. Players, especially in football, may redshirt to learn the team's play book since college teams run more complex and more plays generally than most high school teams. Commonly, an athlete will redshirt the first year of college, if the athlete is redshirting at all.

An athlete may be asked to redshirt if he or she would have no opportunity to play as an academic freshman. This is a common occurrence in many sports where there is already an established starter or too much depth at the position in which the freshman in question is planning to play.

There is also a medical redshirt that may be obtained to replace a season lost to injury. A medical redshirt can be granted by the governing body for a season lost completely or almost completely to injury. A medical redshirt can allow a player to gain additional eligibility beyond the standard four academic calendar years.

The term redshirt freshman indicates an academic sophomore (second-year student) who is in the first season of athletic eligibility. A redshirt freshman is distinguished from a true freshman (first-year student) as one who has practiced with the team for the prior season. The term redshirt sophomore is also commonly used to indicate an academic junior (third-year student) who is in the second season of athletic eligibility. After the sophomore year the term redshirt is rarely used, instead the terms fourth year junior and fifth year senior are more common.

[edit] Nomenclature

According to Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, the term "redshirt" is so called from the red jersey commonly worn by such a player in practice scrimmages against the regulars.