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A good year
By Michael Eisen, Giants.com

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ALBANY 2, 2008

ALBANY, NY - Scott Rodeo is the only member of the Giants organization who someday might consider Super Bowl XLII the second-best sporting event he attended in 2008.

Rodeo, in his ninth season as one of the team's associate physicians, was on the sideline when the Giants defeated the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. He is currently in Beijing, where he is a physician for the U.S. Olympic Swim Team.

"It's been a pretty fun year," Rodeo said. "It's hard to beat January and February, but this is a lot of fun, too."

Last week, Rodeo met the swim team in San Jose. After processing - which includes being fitted for Olympic clothes - the team flew to Singapore, where it will train before flying to Beijing.

"We have a training camp in Singapore," Rodeo said. "A lot of teams are doing training camps overseas because it puts you in the time zone of Beijing but not actually in Beijing itself, so you can get away from the chaos and pollution. So we get acclimated to the heat and the time zone but are in a different city."

This is Rodeo's second Olympics; he was also a physician for the U.S. team at the 2004 Games in Athens. Rodeo has never visited China.

"It's going to be a lot of fun," Rodeo said before he departed. "It's a lot of preparation. I'm busier now than I was in Athens. I'm arranging local medical contacts, reviewing athletes' medical histories and getting pre-approval for all the medicines we need. For example, medicine for ADD, because they can be stimulants, so that has to be taken care of beforehand. A lot of paperwork has to be done to get approval for these medicines; we've had a couple of medical issues, so we have to work with that. There have been a lot of issues that creep up and take time."

Rodeo learned in Athens administering to Olympic athletes is rewarding, but the days are long.

"It's busy and you don't get out much," Rodeo said. "You are at most of the events until 11-11:30 at night and sometimes after the events you're at doping control. The drug testing is usually done at the end of the day after the finals.

"There were eight or nine physicians and different physicians have different main sports. I covered diving, swimming, open water swimming, synchronized swimming, so when those sports are going on you're with those teams at the venue during the day. When swimming is over you cover other sports. I covered boxing, and the men's marathon. The USOC physicians are there for the whole games. Swimming is held over the first nine days, but the games go for 16 days, so on any given day you would be at the venue in the morning for the team where they are competing and usually there is a break in the afternoon at the village where we run a walk-in clinic for U.S. athletes, staff and coaches. Then in the evening you're back at the venue with the team. So you're with the team when they are competing or at the Olympic village. There are about 600 athletes and 1,500 members of the U.S. delegation so it gets pretty busy."

With the Giants, Rodeo, who is an orthopedic surgeon, treats broken bones, torn ligaments, strains and sprains. But the injuries he sees on the swim team are much different.

"It's the fun part of doing two different types of sports medicine," Rodeo said. "Swimming is much more over-use type of injuries; there are a lot of shoulder problems, some back and knee injuries but it's not that type of sport. Part of what you do is travel medicine issues like traveler's diarrhea, upper respiratory infections, urinary tract infections and things like that, that go with traveling, new time zones, and new foods. And there are lacerations and falls and joint dislocations and fractures - things like that occur with a group of 600 athletes."

Rodeo traveled a long road to become an Olympic physician. It begins, really, with his long-time love of swimming, a sport in which he competed at Stanford University and on the national level in the breaststroke. Rodeo still swims, but his activities of choice since moving from California to Manhattan are running and biking.

"There is a group of physicians around the country that takes care of our athletes and I started working for that group when I was a resident," Rodeo said. "I started running our sports medicine program for USA swimming right around 2000. There was a group of trainers, therapists, nutritionists and sports scientists around the country that were interested in swimming and the sports medicine society, so we arranged medical care for domestic and international trips.

"Being a swimmer and having interest in it and then ultimately working at the national team level and on international trips, you kind of work your way up from smaller meets, domestic meets and then you start doing international trips. At the Olympic level you have to spend some time at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs - usually a 2½-week internship - and you live there and take care of a lot of different athletes. A number of athletes live there and train there for all kinds of sports and you have to do all that to get your foot in the door. Then ultimately you can be named to the international staff of the Olympic Games."

Rodeo joined another famous team in 2000 - the Giants, thanks to his relationship with Russell Warren, who has been the team's physician since 1984.

"He's been a mentor, supporter, friend and colleague," Rodeo said. "In fact, the reason I stayed in (the New York) area is probably because of Russ. I met him at Cornell Medical School, which is right next to the Hospital for Special Surgery (where both men practice). I was a med student who got involved in research and ended up staying as a resident. I planned to return to California and work with Michael Dillingham (a longtime physician with the San Francisco 49ers). All through my residency we were ready to go back and work for the 49ers, but then it just became a nice opportunity to stay here.

"I love it. It's an honor and a tremendous experience working with guys like Ronnie (Barnes, the Giants' vice president of medical services), Byron (Hansen, the team's coordinator of rehabilitation) and Steve (Kennelly, the assistant head athletic trainer). You learn so much. Ronnie is everything - therapist, trainer, and doctor combined into one. It's a phenomenal organization."

Barnes gave his blessing to Rodeo to travel to the Olympics. For Rodeo, the only downside is spending a month away from his family (he and his wife, Christine Frissora, who is also a physician, have two sets of twins - Sarah and Scott, Jr. are 12, and Mark and Caitlyn are four).

"That's the hard part," he said. "It's time away from family, but it's a great opportunity and you only live once.

"I'm sorry that I'm missing camp, but I asked Ronnie if I can do this and luckily we have Russ and Bryan Kelly (also an associate team physician) and other people, so they have good coverage. I wanted to make sure of that because I wouldn't have done it again if it would compromise anything with the Giants."

Rodeo will return from China on Aug. 26.

"I'll be there for our last preseason game against New England (on the 28th)," Rodeo said. He'll certainly have interesting stories to tell.