He’s Holding the Line Against Football Injuries : Team Physician Is a Key Man in the Raider Lineup

As an orthopedic surgeon and doctor to the Los Angeles Raiders, Dr. Robert Rosenfeld knows something about football injuries.

Including his own. Sustained on the sidelines.

“I was hit and broke a rib a couple of weeks ago,” he said recently. “It was my fault. If you’re on the sidelines it’s up to you to get out of the way, but I was talking to somebody. . . .

“And in Miami a few years ago, there was a play on the 20-yard line. They hit me and I went flying through the air and dislocated my shoulder.”

Rosenfeld sat in the office he has maintained in the heart of Beverly Hills since 1948. As in most doctors’ offices, medical diplomas and professional commendations hang on one wall and the appropriate medical books fill shelves.

Football Mementos

But dominating the office, sizable desk and all, are football mementos in a glass case. Game balls and trophies cram its shelves, each award a story in itself. The most riveting is the pinnacle itself, a gleaming silver piece unmistakable to any true football fan: the Lombardi trophy signifying the national professional football championship, this one (a replica) for the 1983 season, which the Raiders capped with a 38-to-9 rout of the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl XVIII.

The wall back of Rosenfeld’s desk--the one most likely to capture a visitor’s attention--displays large photos of Raider action and a sidelines shot that is Rosenfeld’s favorite. It shows Rosenfeld, by no means a small man, dwarfed between awesome Raider linemen Otis Sistrunk and Monte Johnson, both now retired. (It reminded Rosenfeld of a story: “I remember that in one roster, ‘N.C.’ was listed after Sistrunk’s name,” he said. “Everybody thought it stood for ‘North Carolina.’ What it meant was ‘no college.’ ”)

Rosenfeld eyed the game balls and chose to mention two, both the gifts of USC players who went on to outstanding pro careers. (The doctor has maintained close ties to USC over the years, including serving as orthopedic consultant to the Trojan football team from 1976 to 1979.)

“One was given me by Willie Wood, who had hurt his shoulder,” Rosenfeld said. “His chances of going to the pros depended on his performance in his last few USC games. I said he could play. All I did, really, was (decide) that I felt his shoulder wasn’t that bad, that he could play.”

Wood went on to an illustrious pro career with the Green Bay Packers. The second game ball was a gift from Clarence Davis, a Trojan who became a Raider rushing star.

“I had operated on Clarence’s knee that season (1974) and my Christmas present, I told him, was that he could play in the AFC playoff against Miami,” Rosenfeld said. “He beat the Dolphins when he caught a last-minute desperation pass from Kenny Stabler.”

Despite his nearly 20 years with the Raiders, Rosenfeld insists he doesn’t know football, which he compares to a game of chess.

He considers Al Davis, principal owner and chief executive officer of the Raiders, as well as the team’s first coach, “a master chessman at this game.”

He and Rosenfeld first met when Davis was an assistant coach with the Trojans in the 1950s.

“When he went to Oakland (as Raider coach), he started asking me to look at a couple of players from time to time,” Rosenfeld said. “Before I knew it I was commuting up there almost every week for games.”

Senior Orthopedic Surgeon

So, in 1968, Rosenfeld became orthopedic surgeon-team physician to the Raiders. Similarly his relationship with USC became a formal one in 1976 after John Robinson, a Raiders assistant coach (now Rams head coach), became head football coach of the Trojans.

Rosenfeld has headed the department of orthopedic surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he has been a senior orthopedic surgeon since 1948 and remains on the staff of several Los Angeles hospitals. Born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, he earned his MD degree from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, in 1938 and did post-graduate work at hospitals in Cleveland and Chicago.

If Al Davis knows football, Robert Rosenfeld knows what it can do to the human body. Yet even he often cannot tell if a play has resulted in an injury. Sometimes a seemingly normal hit can result in serious injury; at other times, the player gets up and goes back in the game after a tackle that looked like it would send him to the hospital.

“I saw it when Darryl Stingley of the New England Patriots got hit by Jack Tatum, our player,” Rosenfeld said. “It was a clean hit. It looked like whiplash--and (Stingley) is a complete quadriplegic.

“We had a boy here, a rookie from Memphis State. He was hurt through spearing (thrusting a helmet into an opponent’s body)--I hope high school coaches teach their players not to spear; it’s so dangerous. We had the paramedics right on the field. He recovered almost completely, but it took three operations.

” . . . The irony was that he was due to be cut from the team the next day (after he was hurt) and he didn’t know it.”

Dreads the Phrase

Rosenfeld has come to dread the phrase “the wind got knocked out of him,” generally an innocuous interruption of a player’s time in the game--except for one frightening occasion.

“Bobby Chandler was down and the first thing they said was ‘the wind got knocked out of him,’ which is common and not serious,” he said. “It scares me now. Bobby turned out to have a ruptured spleen.

“We sat him on the bench to catch his breath but by the third quarter he started going into shock. We began to look like a MASH unit. We gave him IVs; we did everything. By that night we had to remove the spleen. He also had a lacerated kidney, which healed all right.”

The most common football injuries are those to the soft tissue, particularly in the knee, and often require surgery, Rosenfeld said.

Different Thinking

“There has been a switch in our thinking on repairing the ligaments of the knee,” he said. “Now we can be much more selective. If there is a complete tear, we do surgery. But there is one school of thought that in many instances the recovery is as good without an operation as it is with surgery. That is for Grade 1 or Grade 2 injuries--not torn, but partially torn.

Rosenfeld praised Raider trainer George Anderson, who has devised a brace that, the doctor said, gives great protection to the main ligament. He cited an instance with running back Frank Hawkins.

“He got hit and his knee was really loose,” Rosenfeld said. “He put on a brace and went back in. I was surprised how it tightened up on its own. The brace will convert a Grade 3 injury--the worst--to a Grade 1 or 2.

“But the brace is only good for one ligament. It doesn’t help cartilage tears. But it helps what usually happens, the 35% to 40% of knee injuries.”

Braces Mandatory

Some players thought the brace slowed them down, but research at USC showed no difference in speed, Rosenfeld said. Some college teams make wearing a brace mandatory, at least for linemen. A pro player can refuse “but not many do.”

Asked about casts, notably an intimidating arm cast the size of a whole ham worn last year by Mark Gastineau of the New York Jets, Rosenfeld explained that casts are regulated by the NFL and must be padded with foam rubber--”but it’s still a club.”

Quarterbacks frequently hurt their hands: “They’re passing, being rushed, they bring their hand down suddenly, it hits a helmet.” In the case of two injuries on the same play, including one to the quarterback, “You check the quarterback first and evaluate him . . . he’s the team.”

During the week a player may receive cortisone for an injury, and occasionally an injection of novocaine is given before a game “but only if it will not lead a player to injure himself more.”

While not preventing certain injuries, conditioning helps in recovery.

“With the right blow, you’re not going to stop the ligament from being injured,” Rosenfeld said. “We start the player right after the injury with isometrics,” then continue with more strenuous exercises. “Their (the players’) livelihood depends on the ability to follow direction and speed healing.”

As for drug abuse, Rosenfeld said the problem was minimal on the Raider team but marveled that other players protect teammates who are drug users even though loss of a post-season game, for instance, can mean as much as $65,000 to each man.

“When it comes to cocaine, we don’t have many who use it and we get rid of them,” he said. “I don’t know that they are more susceptible to injury but there is an awareness their performance is below par. There is very little of it on the Raiders.

Alcohol a Problem

“Alcohol can be a big problem. We lost one player because he was a drunk. He’d go through alcohol programs but he wouldn’t go to AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and he needed follow-up. . . .”

Although he has taught sports medicine, Rosenfeld thinks the term “has been abused by a lot of doctors. You see everybody using it. Their cards will say orthopedics and a few more things, then down at the bottom ‘specialist in sports medicine.’ ”

But he also sees progress: “Sports medicine has improved. . . . Even the technique has changed. There is a substance for torn ligaments used only on secondary repairs (after initial surgery). It has promise. We can use it to take the place of ligaments, or we use muscles and tendons from the patient’s own body.

“Arthroscopy--I call it ‘surgery through a straw.’ We can see the injury, visualize it. We can remove the torn cartilage, then restore it through the arthroscope. We have learned to leave the periphery in and that helps the knee (heal).”

Despite the injuries he has seen, Robert Rosenfeld thinks high school football can help many youngsters.

“It’s a great way to get rid of frustrations--his family is not a happy one, maybe the parents are divorced, the kids are upset, apprehensive,” he said. “Football is good therapy for some of them. They find out other kids have problems, too. They develop a sense of working together and being part of a team, part of something that counts.”

Rosenfeld, father of a son, now 44, and daughter, 42, has seen the difference coaching can make.

“My son--a big guy, and clumsy--played at Beverly Hills High one year and they were terrible. They’d make a touchdown and think they’d just won the Super Bowl,” he said. “Al Davis, with about a half hour of coaching, completely changed this kid around. My son got honorable mention from the CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) while on a team that never won a ballgame.”

Rosenfeld, who has seen his own son injured in a game, sympathizes with the families of injured players.

“It’s tough to have a parent there watching a kid get hurt,” he said. “I feel for the ones who get hurt and it’s on TV--their wives, mothers and fathers are watching and anxious. The team calls them as soon as possible.”

Rosenfeld has experienced it himself, in a doubly personal way.

“My son tore his knee up, and it was up to Dad to fix it,” he said. “Yeah, it was the worst thing I ever did. If anything had gone wrong, I had only myself to blame.”

Works Long Hours

Rosenfeld works long hours. He sees private patients, he or one of his associate physicians goes to Raiders practice daily and “on weekends I go (to the Coliseum) Sunday mornings at 9 and usually get home around 7:30.” Unless, of course, the team is playing away from home and Rosenfeld travels on the plane with them.

“If we’re playing east of the Mississippi we leave Friday,” he said. “We go really first class, a charter DC-10 staffed by flight attendants. There is no booze, going or coming home.”

Meals in flight used to be lavish and big--”steak, whatever”--until Davis decided he didn’t want his players overeating on the plane. Breakfast the next day seems to know no bounds, however: “Eggs, sausage, bacon, pancakes, grits if we’re in the South, fruit, one player eats fish, ice cream sundaes. That’s when I gain weight.”

Before the game the dressing room is tense despite--and because--of the great lengths the players go to appear casual.

“They’ll be lying down pretending to sleep or playing cards or just looking at space or reading the playbook,” he said.

Before going out on the field, the team prays.

“Every coach has his own style,” Rosenfeld said. “(Coach Tom) Flores says, ‘Let’s take 30 seconds.’ (John) Madden said, ‘Everybody in his own way.’ But you see the players with their heads down. I don’t think they’re just praying to win; I think they pray that they’re not injured and that their teammates aren’t injured.”

On the field Rosenfeld is highly visible on the sidelines, with his distinguished gray hair and light blue shirt or sweater. Is blue his trademark?

“No.” he said. “Superstition. If I wear any part of the Raider outfit, we have bad luck.”