Former Birmingham-Southern athlete and Heidelberg, Germany resident Thorsten Damm ’00 led his university sports program to victory in their latest season. The University of Heidelberg was named second in the nation by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Hochschulsportverband (ADH) – a university sports association in Germany – in their 2019 competition rankings.

With this 2019 ranking, they’ve passed large cities like Munich, Frankfurt, and Cologne through their excellence in participation, performance, and hosting events. This ranking ties with their second place spot in 2008 and marks their first year in the top 10 since 2014. Damm, who has worked at the university for 15 years, was overjoyed to see their record success.

Photos by Dr. Oliver Fink at the University of Heidelberg.

He currently serves as Heidelberg’s athletic director in the university’s Institute for Sports and Sports Science, where he’s studied and/or worked since he finished his years as a professional soccer player for 1. FC Kaiserslautern prospect team alongside famous German striker Miroslav Klose. At BSC, Damm helped Coach Preston Goldfarb’s men’s soccer team reach the national tournament both seasons he was on the team and was named National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Player of the Year in 1999.

In Germany, university sports and recruitment look differently than they do in the United States. College athletes often play for a club team in a different town from their school, so athletics staff like Damm work hard to recruit these students to also play on the school teams.

“The task is to connect within the university and find out about any students involved in a club team and trying to get them to also play on the intercollegiate level,” Damm says.

Though he misses the way all student-athletes were in close quarters on the Hilltop, Damm says that working with club sports results in well-connected and experienced players. Many college athletes have coached a club team or know which players they should recruit to play at the university level.

As the athletic director, Damm runs athletic programs, teaches several lecture courses, and oversees areas of the University Sports Program, an initiative that promotes physical activity among students, faculty, and staff at the University of Heidelberg. With students plus faculty and staff, he’s encouraging nearly 45,000 people to get involved in sports and other activities.

“I love it because you get in touch with many students, great faculty colleagues, and different institutions within our university, which altogether serves as the biggest employer in town,” Damm says.

Before moving into his current role in 2015, Damm was project manager for the Heidelberg Ball School, an internationally recognized physical education program that exposes children to multiple sports at a time. Damm first got involved while he was completing his studies in business, education, and physical education and two of his professors, including the program founder Dr. Klaus Roth, asked him to work for the program.

The Heidelberg Ball School offers programs to elementary schools in the area as a supplementary part of their existing physical education, and it’s one of the most popular programs of its kind in Germany. As Damm explained when we featured his work in 2007, the goal of the Heidelberg Ball School is to find the similarities between sports and to inspire kids with physical activity that takes on the feel of street games.

Though Damm is not as involved in the program now, he still oversees other innovative ways the university promotes sports and exercise. He’s also seen, at their honors ceremony, students recognized for competing in the Olympics or receiving other awards and honors, as well as students receive a scholarship that is unique to Heidelberg and only one other university.

Heidelberg did not get to compete in 2020 due to safety restrictions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, but Damm hopes to see the same success in the new season. Plus, they’ve been able to hold on to their second place 2019 ranking just a little bit longer.