By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation

(This is the sixth in a series of profiles of the 2015 Baylor Athletic Hall of Fame inductees)

Despite a No. 2 ranking as a junior tennis player in Germany, Benedikt Dorsch never gave much thought to turning pro or even coming to the U.S. to play collegiately.

But after spending a year at a college in Germany, he "got bored a little bit."

"Actually, Benni called and asked me if I wanted to join the team," Dorsch said of Baylor teammate Benjamin Becker. "And I guess the rest is history."

That history now includes election to the Baylor Athletic Hall of Fame class. The two-time ITA National Player of the Year and a three-time All-American in singles and doubles is part of the 2015 class that will be inducted at next Friday's Hall of Fame banquet.

"It came as a huge surprise and obviously one of the greatest accomplishments in my career, to be honest," Dorsch said of the Hall of Fame. "It's nice to be in a very elite group of people that have been selected."

Already 21 years old when he arrived as a Baylor sophomore in fall 2002, Dorsch posted a school-record 49 singles wins that still stands. He became the first Baylor player to win a national tournament, upsetting Illinois' Amer Delic to capture the National Intercollegiate Indoor Championship, before falling to Delic in the NCAA singles final.

The next year, Dorsch played No. 1 singles and doubles for a 32-2 Baylor team that blasted third-ranked UCLA, 4-0, for the school's first-ever national team championship.

"Going into a season, you always set your goals," he said. "Our goal that year was just to be in the process of being the best we could be at the end. That was always the mentality that we approached the season. And it happened to be that way, that we got better over the course of the season as a team and obviously as individuals, and we came together at the right moment."

At the end of that season, Dorsch suffered a first-round loss in the NCAA singles tournament, while Becker went on to capture the individual national championship.

"That was funny, because Benni had always seemed to be the one that didn't care about playing singles at the end of the year," said Dorsch, who blamed his early exit on a "lack of motivation, lack of concentration and a lack of preparation."

The Bears nearly pulled off a repeat of the team championship in 2005, winning 33 matches in a row before falling to UCLA, 4-3, in an emotional final.

"You never know what's going to happen in a dual match," said Dorsch, who dominated seventh-ranked Luben Pampoulov in straight sets at No. 1 singles. "But the circumstances, how we lost, was tougher than the loss itself. We were up 3-1, and we were dominating those three singles matches. Every match was close, and we thought we had a really good chance to win all of them. And you end up not winning any of them."

Bouncing back, Dorsch made another run in the NCAA Championships and capped it off with a 6-2, 7-6(6) victory over San Diego's Pierrik Ysern to give the Bears their second straight national singles title. "After losing the team championship the way we did, I think it was almost more difficult to get back the next day to play a singles match," he said. "Having said that, it's the best you can achieve. Winning a NCAA singles championship is something you can do maybe once in a lifetime. And yes, it did happen once in a lifetime to me. That's pretty special."

In arguably the best three-year run in any sport, Dorsch was part of teams that won 93 of 98 matches, swept the Big 12 regular-season and tournament titles and made it to the Final Four three times. Ten years later, he still ranks No. 1 in singles winning percentage (.888), fourth in career singles wins (119) and seventh in doubles victories (83).

Turning pro that summer, Dorsch made an instant splash, reaching the finals in four of his first five tournaments and seeing his world ranking improve from 630 to No. 282 by the end of the year. Dorsch got as high as 127th in the world in May 2009, but retired when he had to have surgery to repair a herniated disc in his back.

"The moment that was the toughest was when I was first diagnosed," he said. "Once I had some time to think about it and get used to the situation, it wasn't that bad anymore. You're 29, 30 years old, you're going to be out for six or eight months, and it's a very, very long process to get back to the level where you are. It just seemed like a reasonable decision at the time."

Now in his sixth year with Hewlett Packard, Dorsch is leading large outsourcing IT (information technology) projects in Germany.

"I really had no idea about IT when I started," he said. "I was happy when I was flipping on the Mac book and turning it on and turning it off. That was about all my knowledge of IT. You could say I was thrown into the water, and I had to get used to a completely new business. But it's a lot of fun now." Dorsch will be joined by his fiancÃÆ' ©e, Simone, and mom, Gilla, who is making her first trip to the U.S. "I know with all the changes that have happened on campus, it's going to be a fantastic experience for all of us," he said. "Some of my teammates are actually coming down from Dallas. We're getting together at Barry McLaren's house the night before and having a good ol' Texas barbecue. Kind of like the old days."

Joining Dorsch in the 2015 Hall of Fame class are football's Tom Muecke and Ed Marsh, basketball's Terry Black and Danielle Crockrom Fontenot, golfer Jimmy Walker, soccer's Molly Cameron and track's Bayano Kamani.

The banquet will be held at 6:30 p.m. this Friday, Oct. 23, at the Ferrell Center. Tickets are $50 each and can be purchased by contacting the "B" Association at 254-710-3045 or by email at tammy_hardin@baylor.edu.