Jim is Dr. James Andrews, the reigning medical superstar to the superstars, the Top Jock Doc. His clients are an all-star team of the lame and the halt returned to health: Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman, Chicago Bull forward Scottie Pippen, Bra zilian soccer striker Maria Am oroso do Santos, Jack Nicklaus, even aerobics star Jane Fonda. Andrews is especially popular because he has proven that reaching for the knife or the arthroscope doesn’t have to be a sports surgeon’s first move.
In Key’s case, Andrews had no choice. Key’s rotator cuff was badly torn. Andrews had to clean up the frayed edges and then pull smooth tissue over the bone. But after this crafty operation, the artful rehabilitation work began. ““The muscle got shortened,’’ says Kevin Wild, a physical therapist who works with Andrews. ““So it had to be stretched out. To do that you have to know exactly how to exercise an arm without putting undue stress on any part of it.’’ Andrews prescribed a strategy. And now, says Wild, if the Yankees win the series, they ought to buy Andrews a ring.
Andrews is part of an elite group of sports-medicine specialists. Together with his partners, William Clancy and Law rence Lemack, he runs Health South, a $49 million private hospital center in Birmingham, Ala., that is an independent force in the athletic world. Once sports medicine was the exclusive province of team doctors, hired by owners or universities and charged with keeping young bodies in one piece. But to whom did the doctor owe his loyalty: the team or the player? For years, sports has been filled with whispers of Dr. Feelgoods who prowled the sidelines, armed with pain killers that let athletes play through injuries. As one veteran NFL player puts it, ““There are company doctors who will do whatever it takes to get you back on the field. Later, after the season, he’ll say, ‘Oh, by the way, better get that knee taken care of’.’’ That attitude may not be tolerated much longer. Last fall a federal-court jury awarded $1.7 million to former Bos ton Red Sox infielder Marty Barrett, who had sued the team physician for malpractice.
Andrews bristles at the suggestion that he and his colleagues are high-priced hired guns. ““We’re not in competition with team doctors,’’ he says, pointing out that he, Clancy and Lemack have all been team doctors for numerous Alabama high schools and colleges. ““We are team doctors.’’ He follows a simple rule: ““In any situation, it’s a physician’s job to do what is in the best interest of his patient. Period.’'
Andrews’s patients are fanatically loyal. ““I’ve always said,’’ volunteers Charles Barkley, ““that if it meant my career, the man I’d want doing the work would be Jim Andrews.’’ Bo Jackson calls him ““the best sports doctor in the world.’’ Bo knows sports doctors. The fracture to the rear wall of his hip socket, suffered during a 1991 playoff game, was assumed to be career-ending. The Kansas City Royals team physicians examined and released him. Then he went home to Alabama. Andrews guessed that Jackson’s hip was healing even though the bone was getting softer. By May, Andrews had decided against surgery and recommended a rehab program consisting of aerobic and flexibility exercise and water workouts. Jackson played two more pro seasons with the Chicago White Sox.
Last fall Andrews operated on the ACL–anterior cruciate ligament–of the Cincinnati Bengals’ $7 million bonus baby, Ki-Jana Carter. There was little of the normal bickering about who should do the surgery. ““To be honest,’’ says Ki-Jana, ““I was going to ask for a second opinion. But after feeling his hands on my knee and listening to him, I figured that there was no point in wasting time.''
Though neither Andrews nor any other sports physician wants to phrase it in these terms, pro athletes like Carter serve as guinea pigs. ““Sports medicine and rehab techniques are growing precisely because of the enormous amounts of money society grants to professional athletes,’’ says Andrews. ““Every innovation we make while working on a pro goes to help high-school athletes or sen ior citizens who want to jog or ride bicycles.''
At 54, James Andrews says, he’s ““old enough to remember a time when sports medicine wasn’t available as a career option.’’ He stresses his debt to Jack Hughston, cited by many doctors as the father of sports medicine. While working at Hughston’s clinic in Columbus, Ga., established in 1949, Andrews had a chance encounter with some minor-league ballplayers, which changed his life and the course of sports medicine. ““Some baseball players came in with sore shoulders, and I had to admit I didn’t know what to do with them. We started watching films of the players and isolating instances of bad mechanics. One thing we determined was that it was bad business for boys to be throwing baseballs and footballs in the same season. The mechanics are similar but different in some important aspects.''
““As brilliant a surgeon as Jim is,’’ says San Francisco ‘49ers team physician Michael Dillingham, ““his major contribution to sports medicine may be in showing us when not to cut.’’ Andrews has been a pioneer in the area of biomechanics, making use of computers and video in studying athletic motion and the stress it puts on body parts. Andrews’s patient studies are so thorough that when surgery is required, a patient will often do rehab work first, to strengthen muscles that will aid in the recovery. And when surgery isn’t required, his work can relieve a lot of pain. ““Jim can’t cut two strokes from your game,’’ says patient and golf partner Jerry Pate, ““but he can show you how to design a swing that won’t bother your back.’'
So what’s it like to be the man who makes it possible for other men to go to the Hall of Fame? ““I think of myself as an athlete,’’ Andrews says, ““but I know I can’t juke a linebacker or hit a 90-mile-per-hour fastball. I know this sounds silly, but surgery for me is like playing a good football game. I relish the thrill of competing against an injury.’’ And winning.
