• E-mail

In March, Chris Hendrix got his college acceptance letter. Since then, the Richardson Berkner senior has been careful what he says around friends.

"I say something dumb and they all get on me because I'm going to MIT," said Hendrix, who was Berkner's ace pitcher this spring. "But I'm just a normal guy."

Hendrix might be normal, but his college is exceptional. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the country's most prestigious universities, and this year, it had its lowest acceptance rate ever. Of the 13,396 students who applied, only 1,554 were accepted (11.6 percent).

"Once I was accepted, I was like, 'Whoa!' " Hendrix said. "It was pretty exciting."

Exciting for Hendrix, his parents and the MIT baseball coach.

MIKE STONE / Special to DMN

Berkner's Chris Hendrix considered walking on at Texas A&M before learning he was among the miniscule 11.6 percent of applicants accepted to prestigious MIT.

Yes, MIT has baseball. That made it even more thrilling for Hendrix, who was 3-3 with a 2.90 ERA this season and nearly pitched Berkner into the playoffs. Hendrix had hoped to play baseball in college and for a while considered walking on at Texas A&M.

But when Hendrix was accepted to MIT, he knew where he was going.

"At first, I didn't even consider MIT as a college choice," Hendrix said. "I knew you had to be extremely smart to get in there."

Hendrix will be teammates with another pitcher with smarts: Fort Worth Arlington Heights senior Chris Vaughan. They'll play for MIT's NCAA Division III team, which is competitive but truly puts the student before athlete. That's made pretty obvious by MIT's mascot: the Engineer.

Engineering is also the field that interests Hendrix, who wants to be a civil engineer. Hendrix knows MIT will be a challenge, but Berkner coach Jason Wilson expects him to succeed.

"He's incredibly bright, hard-working, very dedicated and goal-oriented," Wilson said. "He had some offers to play baseball at other places, but he knows what MIT offers other than baseball."

A great opportunity, and with more hard work, a very bright future.

"People told me that if you get a degree from there, you can pretty much get a job anywhere," Hendrix said.

Especially if the employer fields a company baseball team.

mwixon@dallasnews.com

mwixon@dallasnews.com

YEARBOOK MOMENT: During this week in 1976, Larry Long had three hits to help Duncanville beat Richardson, 7-1, in Game 2 of their best-of-3 "big division" semifinal series. Duncanville swept that series to advance to regionals and later won its second straight state title in 4A – the largest UIL classification at the time. Long was a big contributor at the state tournament, hitting .667.

FAMILIAR TERRITORY: The Garland softball team plays in the 5A Region II final this week against its former nemesis, Tomball. In 2003 and '04, Tomball beat Garland in the regional semifinals. Since then, Garland has made it to three straight state finals and won the last two titles. Garland also beat Tomball in the regional semifinals last year.

ALL-AMERICAN NOMINATIONS: The U.S. Army All-American Bowl has named its 472 nominees for its next game in January. Yes, that's a lot of nominees. But it's still an honor for the 21 area players who have a chance to be in the group of 90 that will be invited to play in the game. The Dallas-area nominees: