SOUTH BEND — Evan Sharpley never mentioned the word "dream" when it came to his landing in professional baseball draft’s 50th and final found Thursday.

Perhaps the serendipity of all the pieces falling into place just when it looked like the dream was about to unravel is still too surreal.

"It’s been a real weird experience," the Notre Dame two-sport participant said Monday afternoon.

Weird, but with a happy ending and an unexpected twist.

The Notre Dame infielder came to terms with the Seattle Mariners on Monday and heads to Peoria, Ariz., tonight to embark on his professional baseball career. The Arizona League Mariners’ short-season rookie league team opens its season Sunday.

The twist is that football is still in play.

The Mariners agreed to let Sharpley cut his first pro season short by three weeks and return to Notre Dame in time for football training camp the first weekend in August.

Sharpley, whose ambition when sports end is to teach and coach, will be able to finish his student-teaching requirement this fall and serve as ND’s third option at quarterback behind starter Jimmy Clausen and backup Dayne Crist.

Yes, Notre Dame has had to dip that far down on occasion in recent years. Think Pat Dillingham and Eric Chappell.

Sharpley represents a considerable upgrade, given his significant playing experience, though little of it came last year. In 2007, Sharpley played in eight games and actually started two, completing 55 percent of his 140 attempts for 736 yards and five touchdowns with three interceptions.

But last season, Clausen consumed all but 13 minutes and change at QB during the regular season, and Sharpley ended up attempting just five passes in three cameos. He did not play on Senior Day, a stunning 24-23 come-from-ahead loss to Syracuse.

"If you had asked me last November if I’d ever consider coming back, I would have said no," the Marshall, Mich., product said. "It was pretty frustrating the way it was ending. You never think your career is going to go like that. But now that the opportunity is here, I think it’s going to be fantastic.

"I think it’s not only going to be great from a player’s standpoint, but as a future coach’s standpoint as well. I’m going to take advantage of being able to look at what goes into the planning and behind-the-scenes stuff. I owe a lot to coach Weis.’’

It was ND head football coach Charlie Weis who approached Sharpley last winter to convince him to clandestinely apply for a fifth year of eligibility for football, just to cover all the bases.

Sharpley skipped spring football practice to focus solely on baseball, but he struggled in his final season for the Irish baseball team — hitting about 100 points lower last spring (.223, 5 HRs, 15 RBIs) than during his breakout junior season (.324, 15 HRs, 40 RBIs).

"I wasn’t sure I was going to get drafted," he said. "I was just hoping for the best."

Sharpley first heard from the Mariners before the draft after teammate and first-round Arizona Diamondbacks draft choice A.J. Pollock gave Sharpley a high recommendation during a pre-draft workout with Seattle.

"When I heard from them after the draft, I had kind of ruled out football because it didn’t sound like that’s what the Mariners wanted. But a couple of days later, I was talking to one of the scouts and he thought it was a great idea, so here I am.

"Now I’ve got a million phone calls to make between now and coming back to Notre Dame and I absolutely have no place to live in the fall, don’t even know what school I’m going to student teach at," he said. "But I couldn’t be happier.

"(Former ND) coach (Paul) Mainieri always told me I’d have a chance to play in the majors if I ever got enough at-bats to find myself. I never forgot that and never stopped believing that. I’ve got my chance, which is all I ever wanted, but I’ve got so much more. It doesn’t matter that it was the last round of the draft. I’m on top of the world."