T.J. Palma’s College Baseball Career Before the Villa
On June 17th, T.J. Palma made his reality television debut on Netflix’s Love Island. Unfortunately for Palma, he was unable to win over the hearts of the show’s viewers, let alone anyone in the Villa. Just 10 days after he arrived, his reality TV stardom ended, and he was sent home, back to his regular life. Love Island fans on social media agreed that it seemed like Palma didn’t exist outside of the Villa. Who was T.J. Palma before he was Love Island’s hot new bombshell? He was a national champion.
On June 7th, a few days before Palma entered the Villa, the University of Tampa Spartans defended their title and won their 10th Division Two College World Series title in program history. Palma was not in Cary, North Carolina, that day. However, exactly a year prior, he was. A member of the winning team. While he was not on the starting roster this time, Palma did play an impressive 2024 season with the Spartans, one that also earned him and his team a national championship.
Before entering the Love Island Villa, T.J. Palma was an outfielder, left field to be specific. Standing at six feet tall, the 23-year-old played a total of 29 games for the Spartans. Palma recorded 10 RBIs in those 29 games, including one sacrifice fly. He played well offensively in his plate appearances, especially in the Spartans’ conference matchups. In his conference appearances, Palma recorded a batting average of .313 and an OPS of .389. During the 2024 season, he also recorded an excellent slugging percentage of .563 in conference play. However, outside of conference play, Palma’s performances did lower those percentages recorded for a full season.
In his final game on the starting roster for the Spartans, Palma’s defensive skill in left field helped his team secure a massive 15-1 win against Embry-Riddle. Before T.J. Palma was Love Island’s “hot new bombshell,” he was a college baseball player. If his 270,000 TikTok followers look deep enough into his posts, they’ll find more than just the Love Island staples of a white toothed smile and abs. They’ll find content of the days before he became Spartan Baseball’s fourth athlete to appear on reality TV, from the day he and his teammates became conference champions, regional champions, and finally national champions.
