Texas A&M Pitcher Ryan Prager Heads to the Big Leagues with a Degree in Hand
Pitcher Ryan Prager ’25 delayed one dream for another: graduating.
July 14, 2025
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By Douglas Pils ’92 | Photos by Ryan Price ’07
This article originally appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of @Mays.
Ryan Prager has achieved a lot at Texas A&M.
In baseball, he pitched twice for the Aggies at the College World Series: once in 2022 and again in 2024. In between, he spent 2023 recovering from surgery on his left pitching elbow.
He came back so strong in 2024, guiding A&M within one victory of its first national championship, the Los Angeles Angels took him in the Major League Baseball draft’s third round.
However, Prager chose another goal over pro baseball. Finishing his finance degree at Mays Business School had to come first.
“Going through high school, I always wanted to be great at baseball, but I also wanted to be great at school and kind of carried that over to college,” says Prager, who was valedictorian in 2021 at Hillcrest High School in Dallas. “I knew I was going to finish at some point, whether that be now or in the future, but it’s way easier doing it as a student athlete.”
Prager finished his degree requirements with an international accounting class this spring and graduated on a busy May weekend, when Missouri was in College Station for the Aggies’ final home Southeastern Conference series.
What Prager has done is rare. From 2019 to 2024, only four players drafted in the top three rounds forwent signing. Instead of starting his pro career last summer, Prager attended fall classes and prepared to lead the preseason No. 1-ranked Aggie Baseball team one more time. New coach Michael Earley welcomed some new talent along with a host of returners, but Prager’s loyalty stands out among them all.
“I mean, this place has given me so much from a school standpoint, an athletic standpoint. It’s done a ton for my family — for a family that had zero ties to Texas A&M,” Prager says. “And it was something that you don’t want to give up.”
His decision to stay didn’t surprise Dr. Nate Y. Sharp, dean of Mays Business School and one of Prager’s mentors during his four years at Texas A&M. Sharp asked Prager to speak to his dean’s advisory board and at the dedication of Mays’ new Wayne Roberts ’85 Building last January.
Sharp calls Prager one of the most impressive students he’s been around in nearly 18 years at Texas A&M. The choice to finish his degree only cemented that thought.
“Many people who achieve the level of exceptionalism and excellence that Ryan has achieved have a pretty big sense of self-importance,” Sharp says. “Ryan is not that way at all. He’s humble, he’s personable, and it comes back to character. He’s a person who thinks first about helping others, and he lives our Core Values every day.”
The business skills and the degree he’s leaving Mays with means his future holds high potential after his playing days end — but he hopes that won’t be anytime soon. Prager was selected by the Cleveland Guardians in the ninth round of the 2025 MLB Draft.
“I would definitely say baseball is Plan A, but I’ve thought about working in wealth management or personal finance,” he says. “Maybe taking that and working with high net-worth athletes is interesting for me.”
