One will head to Tampa, Fla., for the Yankees’ spring training in March. One will eventually be heading home to Hawaii to practice medicine. One plans to take one more shot at playing professional baseball.

But all three former Creighton baseball players – Pat Venditte, Brett Mieras and Michael Lam – are back on campus this fall, finishing up their degrees or taking the next step in their careers.

Venditte and Mieras both have one more semester of undergraduate study before they graduate in December. Lam is in his first year of medical school.

Venditte, an ambidextrous pitcher, was drafted in the 20th round of the 2008 Major League Baseball Draft by the New York Yankees and made his minor league debut in June for the Staten Island Yankees. He is finishing his degree in marketing.

Having a foot in the door with a professional team may give an athlete a reason not to return to school, but for him, it wasn’t a tough call to make.

“Because I had one semester left, it was a very easy decision,” he said. He thinks returning to school is a wise decision for any athlete.

“The percentage of D-I athletes who are going to make it, that’s very rare,” he said. “If the athlete can see the big picture, it’s a whole lot better.”

Lam, who played second base and outfield for the Jays, agrees and believes that being a student should always come before being an athlete. He said Creighton does an excellent job of making sure its student-athletes

understand that.

“For me, personally, I think that all students should focus on their education as being priority No. 1, because Creighton provides us with such great opportunities that it would be a shame to not take advantage of them,” he said.

As the NCAA ads say, “There are over 380,000 NCAA student athletes, and just about all of them will go pro in something other than sports.” However, that doesn’t mean they’re not going to try.

Venditte made it onto ESPN’s SportsCenter last summer, the day after his professional debut, because of a seven-minute standoff between him and a switch-hitting batter, both of whom switched sides several times. He finished the season with a record 23 saves, allowing just 13 hits and three earned runs in 32 2/3 innings.

Venditte said his favorite thing about playing in Staten Island this summer was the atmosphere.

“The fans are crazy out there,” he said.

Mieras, a psychology major, spent his summer playing ball with the Bay Area Toros Professional Baseball Club, a team in the Continental Baseball club in Texas that is not affiliated with Major or Minor League baseball. He plans to give his baseball career one

more shot.

“If I don’t get onto an affiliated ball club by the end of the summer, I am going to hang up my competitive playing shoes and go into the real world,” the catcher and outfielder said.

Meanwhile, Lam took the time to relax before the grueling experience of medical school.

“I picked up golf this summer and got addicted, so I didn’t play any baseball, but I did coach my high school summer team,” he said.

Whether they will end up on the cover of “Sports Illustrated” or not, playing baseball for Creighton has taught all three

important lessons.

Mieras said balancing an NCAA Division-I sport and a university course load taught him, “time management, work ethic, leadership skills and how to handle stress.”

For Lam and Venditte, it was the toughest times in baseball that taught them the most.

“The greatest lesson that athletics can teach someone is how to deal with that tough situation and, most importantly, how to get through it,” Lam said. “This skill is one that will be valuable throughout my life and one that I have already implemented many times on the baseball field.”

Venditte said his greatest lessons have come from failure. “The adjustments you make to correct the situation can transfer to life,”

he said.

Each player has kept in touch with the friends he’s made while playing for the Jays. Lam said he tries to golf with some buddies every week, and Venditte said it was difficult playing in New York without his teammates cheering him on.

“We had such a tight bond, it was really hard to leave,” Venditte said.

They will get the chance to test those bonds this Alumni Weekend as the alumni take on their former teammates in the annual alumni baseball game at the CU Sports Complex.