OT Dr. James Nicholas RIP

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James Nicholas, 85, Leader in Treating Sports Injuries, Dies

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By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN

Published: July 17, 2006

James A. Nicholas, a pioneer in the treatment of athletic injuries who was best known for performing four knee operations that saved the celebrated career of Jets quarterback Joe Namath, died Saturday in Scarsdale, N.Y. He was 85.

Skip to next paragraph United Press International

James Nicholas, left, helped the Jets’ Joe Namath to his feet in 1969.

The cause was colon cancer, said his daughter, Nicole Hambro.

During the 1960’s and 1970’s, Dr. Nicholas was among the best-known orthopedic surgeons in the United States as a physician for three New York professional teams: the Jets, the Knicks and the Rangers. He was also a consultant for baseball players and professional dancers. But his work extended well beyond the high-profile patient.

Dr. Nicholas and the staff at Lenox Hill Hospital’s brace shop developed the Lenox Hill derotation brace to protect chronically unstable and surgically repaired knees. The brace, designed for Namath, has aided many other athletes, but it has been worn by thousands outside the sports world.

In 1973, Dr. Nicholas founded at Lenox Hill the world’s first hospital-based research and clinical center for the treatment and prevention of sports injuries, the Nicholas Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma. The center, named for Dr. Nicholas in 1986, is now directed by his son Stephen, an orthopedic surgeon, who succeeded him there in 2001.

“In 1972, more than 17 million people required a physician’s services for leisure-time injuries, more casualties than there were in all the wars our country has fought,” Dr. Nicholas once told Dave Anderson of The New York Times, recalling how he came to create the center.

Dr. Nicholas used sophisticated photography to analyze body movement in throwing, running, kicking and jumping. He also studied body types to determine vulnerability to injury, discovering, for example, how loose-jointed and tight-jointed people were prone to different types of injuries.

A son of Greek immigrants, Dr. Nicholas was born in Portsmouth, Va., but grew up in New York City. He graduated from New York University in 1942 and Long Island Medical College in 1945.

Dr. Nicholas gained experience in orthopedic work in the Army and at Lenox Hill Hospital, where he trained under Sidney S. Gaynor, the Yankees’ team physician.

He was also a specialist in the management of adrenal disease during surgery and was a member of the team that operated on Senator John F. Kennedy’s spine at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York in October 1954.

It was feared at the time that Kennedy might be vulnerable to complications during orthopedic surgery because of Addison’s disease, an insufficiency of hormone production from the adrenal glands.

Dr. Nicholas’s involvement in pro sports began in 1960 through one of his patients, the sportscaster Harry Wismer. Mr. Wismer had founded the fledgling American Football League’s New York Titans, the forerunner of the Jets, and asked him to be the team’s doctor.

In January 1965, Namath, the star quarterback from the University of Alabama, was signed by the Jets to a deal in excess of $400,000 that transformed him into a celebrity, albeit one with a gimpy right knee. Some three weeks later, Dr. Nicholas repaired ligament and cartilage damage in the knee, and Namath embarked on a Hall of Fame career.

But problems with Namath’s right knee resurfaced, and Dr. Nicholas removed cartilage and bone fragments and rerouted tendons in December 1966.

Dr. Nicholas operated on the knees of the outstanding Jets running backs Emerson Boozer and Matt Snell in 1967, and he repaired ligament, cartilage and tendon damage in Namath’s left knee in March 1968.

In January 1969, the Jets captured Super Bowl III in a huge upset of the Baltimore Colts. At the celebration, Namath, Snell and Boozer lifted Champagne glasses to toast Dr. Nicholas.

Dr. Nicholas operated on Namath’s left knee again in August 1971, repairing ligament damage. Bad knees and all, Namath played 12 seasons for the Jets and one with the Los Angeles Rams.

“After four operations I have complete confidence in him,” Namath told The New York Times Magazine in 1971. “If he tells me to play, I play; if he says I should retire, I retire.”

Dr. Nicholas was a member of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports during Jimmy Carter’s presidency. He was a founding member of the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine and the first president of the Professional Football Physicians Association. He was the Jets’ orthopedist through the 1991 season, then became chairman of the team’s medical department.

In addition to his son Stephen, of Scarsdale, also a former Jets orthopedist, and his daughter, of London, he is survived by his wife, Kiki; a son Philip, of Los Angeles; his brother, Calvin, formerly the Jets’ chief internist, and his sister, Patricia Bohn, both of Florida; and nine grandchildren.

Dr. Nicholas was very much a fan, pacing the sidelines during Jets games, at times in a windbreaker and wool cap bearing Jets green. In November 1968, he was a footnote to the Jets-Raiders game in which NBC television cut away during the final moments to show the children’s movie “Heidi.”

After Oakland scored two touchdowns to win, Dr. Nicholas, incensed by what he viewed as inconsistent calls that led to injuries, stormed to the officials’ locker-room door with Walt Michaels, an assistant coach. The Jets were fined $2,000 by the league for complaints about the officiating.

Dr. Nicholas once recalled, “I’m the only team doctor in history ever fined for banging on the door.”

Read this in the Times this morning- Mr. Nicholas was a fixture in the history and success of the Jets-RIP

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R.I.P.

[Mavrik]

Don't let TX read that last sentence.

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His daughter's name was Nicole Nicholas?

Cruel......................