Hall of Fame
The men’s tennis doubles team of David Buerkle and William Esser finished the 1995 tennis season ranked tenth nationally in NAIA and went on to win the conference championship.
Esser graduated summa cum laude from Belmont Abbey College in 1995 and received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Notre Dame in 1999. While at the Abbey, he was a member of the tennis team for four years and also ran cross country. In 2006, Esser served as an adjunct professor at the Abbey and in 2010 he was named Belmont Abbey College’s Brother Gregory Corcoran Distinguished Alumnus of the Year. Esser is the co-founder and past president of the Saint Thomas More Society and a member of the National Alumni Board of Belmont Abbey College. He is also a past president and board member of Room at the Inn, Inc., a safe haven for pregnant women and their children, and assisted in initiating a capital campaign to build the nation’s first college-based maternity and after-care residential facility to be housed near Belmont Abbey College. Recently, The Charlotte Business Journal named him one of their “40 under 40,” which lists people who are making major strides in their careers and impacting their communities.
