University of North Carolina Athletics
Legends Of Sports Medicine
September 12, 2014 | General
by Turner Walston
Two UNC Sports Medicine fixtures were recently inducted into Halls of Fame for their respective fields. Dr. Tim Taft, the Max Novich Distinguished Professor or Orthopaedics, was inducted into the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) Hall of Fame in July. In June, longtime athletic trainer and physical therapist Dan Hooker was inducted into the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Trainers Association (MAATA) Hall of Fame in Virginia Beach. The two have both been involved with UNC Sports Medicine since the early 1970s, and each has been honored as a 'Carolina Priceless Gem.'
Taft attended Princeton University before medical school at the University of Missouri. When choosing a location for his residency, Taft visited two other sites before selecting Chapel Hill. "I came here and it was gorgeous. I walked across campus, and it was Carolina in the fall," he said. "That may have had as much influence on it as anything."
The first sports medicine injury that Taft treated came during a summer fencing event, while he was an intern in the emergency room. "I had been a doctor for about two weeks," he said. "Ron Miller, who was participating in this tournament, came in with a laceration on his chest, and I sutured it up. Pretty simple, straight-forward." And now, thanks in part to Taft, Miller is in his 48th season as Carolina's fencing coach. "Not 'thanks to me,'" Taft corrects, laughing. "This was not that big a deal. He's got a scar on his chest."
After the heat stroke-related death of football player Billy Arnold in 1971, the university established its sports medicine program, one of the first of its kind, and took student-athlete health out from under the umbrella of athletics. That establishment dovetailed with Taft's completion of his residency, and he had the opportunity to stay on to direct the orthopedics division.
In the more than 40 years since, Taft has performed countless surgeries on Carolina athletes you've heard of, and ones that you haven't. "You've got people like Gio (Bernard), who had a bad knee injury, and then somebody like Marion Jones with her foot fractures," he said. "We've had the opportunity to take care of a lot of outstanding people who've worked hard and done well."
Dan Hooker has long been a part of the team keeping athletes safe and helping them return from injury. A native of Danville, Va., Hooker was inspired by family friend Charles Smith to get involved in athletic training and physical therapy. He came to Carolina amid the founding of the sports medicine program in the early 1970s. He saw the changes taking place at Carolina. "It was a very idealistic approach to sports medicine," Hooker said. "I embraced it and said, 'Why shouldn't it be this way?'" Athletic training as a serious discipline was in its infancy, having been the domain of former coaches. "The mentality had been all about the game, about making the team successful," at the cost of the individual's health. "It was all about toughness," Hooker said.
Arnold's death brought player safety into the forefront. "It does matter about how we educate players and coaches," Hooker said. "This thing about being tough, and not drinking water in 100-degree heat, and running until you drop and throwing up, that's not smart. Those were interesting times."
Hooker's superiors at the time were determined not to have another heat stroke death, so risk awareness was instilled in players, coaches and trainers.
In the years since, Hooker has been a part of training and recovery for many, many UNC athletes. He watches games in a way that's different from you or me, multitasking while keeping a concerned eye on player safety. "I'm trying to be anticipatory in my thinking," he said. "What's the next step? What happens at the next point? Are we getting ready for a timeout? Who's going out to check if there's somebody down? Those are the things that are going through my mind."
Hooker retired from full-time work last June but sees physical therapy patients two days a week, consults athletic trainers, and is available to help when needed on a sideline.
For more than 40 years, Taft and Hooker have been two pieces of the puzzle, parts of the sports medicine process that keeps Carolina athletes safe and helps them return to play. When a student-athlete recovers from an injury, the trainers and doctors involved take pride having played their part.
"It's kind of like you've just gotten an 'A' on a test," Hooker said. "You want to jump up and down and celebrate and say, 'You know, I helped that guy do what he just did.' You know it's them; it's not you. They've done all the hard work, but you had that small part in it," Hooker said. "You got them back to a point where they were participating safely, and you turned them out, and boom, they're an elite-level guy and they make things happen. You just have a share of that."
