Just Like Athletes, the Olympic Medical Team Had to Qualify

Athletes aren’t the only ones who have to prove themselves the cream of the crop to qualify for the Olympics.

Some of the Olympic support personnel and administrators are tested and screened just as stringently.

Take the team of physicians and trainers who will accompany American athletes to Seoul in September and deal with everything from the Olympians’ food preparation to medication to stretching to injuries and medical problems, athletic and otherwise.

Dr. James Puffer, a physician and professor at UCLA Medical Center and a regular sideline helper at UCLA sports events, heads the U.S. Olympic medical delegation. He said the athletes can be assured of a select staff of sports doctors, trainers and therapists, a veritable contender for the gold medal in medicine.

In an interview in his UCLA Medical Center office, surrounded by sports medicine books and Olympic memorabilia, the lifelong El Segundo resident said the medical staff of 28--consisting of six physicians, 21 trainers and therapists and a chiropractor--went through a screening process “as rigorous as the athletes’ for selection to represent their country.”

Puffer, who has been working with UCLA athletic teams and with national sports federations and international sporting events for a dozen years, chairs a five-member staff that whittled down the medical crew from hundreds of applicants, who then worked their way through national sports festivals and Pan American Games and World University Games to earn a shot at the Olympics.

He said he devised the competitive rating process to avoid the appearance of favoritism, the inclination to select friends or associates.

Puffer, who was sports medicine director for the U.S. water polo team for several years--each national federation has its own medical advisers--said: “We have had a volunteer program for 12 years” for doctors who “showed interest by volunteering their time” at the national training centers at Colorado Springs, Colo., and Lake Placid, N.Y.

Puffer said 500 to 600 annually apply for the 150 spots available. Of those, he said about 20--”the very best”--are promoted to work at the National Sports Festivals. From there, “they’re rated and moved to the next pool for the World University Games, evaluated again and moved to the final pool of about 16 to 18 for the Pan Am Games and Olympic Games.”

Some of the medical staff will accompany U.S. teams playing in pre-Olympic tours this summer. Then they will be in Seoul for about five weeks. Puffer just returned from a second trip to Seoul, where he made a final site inspection. He returned with a positive impression of facilities, security and other aspects of such a major overseas undertaking.

“I’m very confident the quality of food and water will not pose a health hazard to our athletes,” he said. “We’re advising they consume food only in the (Olympic) village or the box lunches provided at venues and drink only bottled water until after their competition.

“Security has been addressed on every visit. I’ve always felt very safe there. The South Koreans have appropriately addressed this issue.”

Referring to possible terrorism or threats from North Korea, Puffer said: “I think the Games are going to be uneventful. This will be the first Olympiad in two or three where most of the major countries will be there, and I think Seoul will be a very safe place to be.”

Puffer, 38, has mixed sports and medicine from his days as a water polo and swimming star at El Segundo High in the late 1960s. He wanted to be a doctor from childhood and earned a regents scholarship to UCLA.

Puffer swam and played water polo at UCLA, playing on the NCAA championship water polo teams in 1969 and ’71 and earning All-American honors as a senior in 1971. He continued at UCLA Medical School and began working with the school’s athletic teams as a fourth-year resident in 1976.

“I had done a sports medicine rotation in my fourth year,” he explained. “At that time, there were just two orthopedists working with the teams. I think (the athletes) appreciated what I brought to the team medically.”

Shortly afterward, the national water polo team asked if he would provide medical help to the program. He has been involved in the national and international sports medicine scene since. He began working with the U.S. Olympic Committee in 1979 and was head U.S. physician at the World University Games in 1985, and shortly later he was appointed chief Olympic physician for 1988 by the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Puffer has an air of achievement and self-confidence, reminiscent of ’84 Olympic chief Peter Ueberroth, that has served him well as he juggles several roles. Indeed, despite all the time and travel that have gone into getting ready for Seoul, particularly over the last year, Puffer said his Olympic role “only comprises a small portion of my time.”

Puffer is chief of the division of family medicine at UCLA, where he is also on the medical school faculty and sees his own patients. A recent inductee into the El Segundo High School Hall of Fame--along with baseball star George Brett--Puffer still finds time to run regularly (up to 50 miles a week) and says the worst part of his recent traveling is that it takes him away from wife Sheridan and their three children. He’s considering taking them to Seoul, though he would see little of them there.

“I can hardly wait for (the Olympics) to be over,” his wife said with a laugh, adding that Puffer teaches several volunteer classes in El Segundo along with all of his official duties. They met at UCLA, where he first saw her--of course--at a football game. She characterized him as “extremely organized . . . so confident . . . very involved in everything.” She added: “I don’t know how he gets to everything. I can’t keep up with him. He’s an A-plus family man, and after 13 years of marriage (and) for all he does, to still be able to say his family is No. 1 with him is good.”

Puffer and his staff will begin working with the athletes in late August when they will come through Los Angeles on the way to Seoul. The athletes will be processed at a hotel near LAX--about a day’s worth of paper work and other preparations. Puffer will travel with the team to Seoul on Sept. 2 and be there through the Games, which run into early October. The staff will set up a medical clinic in the Olympic village.

Puffer’s staff not only has to educate the athletes on safe eating habits as well as potential infectious diseases in Seoul but in use of over-the-counter medication that could be found illegal. Several Olympians have been stripped of medals for taking a common cold medicine or allergy remedy that contained banned substances.

Puffer says U.S. athletes are tested for steroids and “performance-enhancing” drugs at Olympic trials so that “we know every individual who’s selected is drug-free at the time they made the team.”

Hence, he’s more worried about use of non-prescription medicines by athletes. “A major task is to educate the athletes to make certain they don’t take anything inadvertently without making sure” it is cleared by the medical staff. “We have an array that can be used.” Puffer has briefed managers of all national sports federations.

“Everything’s done. It’s a matter of waiting for the Games to come,” he said.