Sports Medicine

Joseph Torg, the godfather of sports medicine in Philadelphia, as well as the Eagles' team physician, is taking his multimillion-dollar practice to Hahnemann University Hospital beginning Sunday. The move revealed a bitter split over the direction of medical care at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where Torg has practiced for nearly 17 years. Torg, 60, founded the sports-medicine program at Temple in 1970, then moved to HUP after seven years. "My vision is to put together a regional, comprehensive sports medicine program utilizing all of Hahnemann's facilities," he said.

I am a physical-therapy major, and when I graduate, I would like to cater to major league teams in football, basketball, etc. What additional courses do you think will help to better my chances of accomplishing this? How does one go about applying for such a position? - D.D., Mount Laurel. According to William Ray Heitzmann, a career education specialist at Villanova University and author of Opportunities in Sports Medicine (National Textbook Co., $7.95), make sure you become certified as a physical therapist.

Athletes who suffer weekend injuries will have access to sports medicine experts who are starting a Monday clinic at the North Hills Medical Building on Marshall Street in West Chester. "The clinic gives the athlete instant access to quality medical care without the wait of the usual sources of health care," said director Phillip B. Donley, an athletic trainer at the 1980 Winter Olympics and the director of Chester County Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy. Donley and partner Gary D. Shields said sports injuries often did not receive the priority they deserved in hospital emergency rooms.

Ronald Goldberg, 61, an early and innovative South Jersey practitioneer of sports medicine whose work and concern for others touched the lives of thousands, died yestersday at West Jersey Hospital-Voorhees. The cause of death was heart and kidney complications resulting from amyloidosis. A Cherry Hill resident with offices in Winslow Township, in the late 1960s Dr. Goldberg ran a practice that uniquely combined family medicine with sports medicine well before it became fashionable as a speciality field.

Duce Staley, ganged up on the last four weeks by defenses, now has a much more complicated situation. And it will be next week before his status for the remainder of the season is known. Staley, who injured his right foot early in the fourth quarter of Sunday's 38-10 victory over Atlanta, visited a sports medicine specialist in his hometown of Columbia, S.C., yesterday, but came away with no more answers. The problem is a ligament in the foot. Evan Ekman of Southern Orthopedics sports medicine in Columbia wants to see Staley again next week for "stress testing," said Staley's agent, Brantley Evans.

Jill Marple has made what appears to be an outstanding career choice. But she came to it in an unpleasant fashion. Marple, a fourth-year starter for Cherry Hill East's girls' basketball team, is hoping for a career in sports medicine. A senior with a 3.60 grade- point average, she hopes to attend Dartmouth or Columbia. But she didn't just pick the curriculum out of a catalogue. She had what you might call on-the-job training. "I spent so much time at the sports medicine clinic because of my ankles, I got a job there over the summer," she said.

Patient: Lisa Corbley, age 16, a volleyball player at St. Hubert's in Northeast Philadelphia. Case history: Arthroscopic surgery performed to repair torn ligaments of right knee one week ago. Identical surgery performed a year earlier on left knee. Enter Dr. Raymond Moyer, medical director of Temple University Sports Medicine Center. Moyer examines Corbley at Temple's new satellite in Northeast Philadelphia. "You've got some puffiness from the surgery that has to be expected for another five weeks," Moyer tells her. "I don't want you to put any weight on this knee.

Lourdes Health System said it would open an ambulatory care center in a vacant building at the corner of Route 70 and Brace Road in Cherry Hill. The $13 million center, to be developed by Rosewood Real Estate Enterprises of Cherry Hill, is expected to open early next year, Lourdes said. Lourdes has a 15-year lease and is expected to spend at least $4 million for equipment and furnishings, spokeswoman Lauren Markin said. The 54,000-square-foot center will be the primary office for Lourdes Cardiology Services and will have physician offices for orthopedics, sports medicine, rheumatology and podiatry.

Duke University team physician Frank Bassett did something extraordinary last year. He took the stand and testified against a fellow team doctor. An expert witness for Marc Buoniconti in the player's $6 million negligence suit against The Citadel, Bassett testified that Citadel physician E.K. Wallace had exercised poor judgment in allowing Buoniconti to play with a sprained neck on the day when the middle linebacker was rendered a quadriplegic for life. Buoniconti eventually lost the jury's verdict, but that wasn't the end of the case for Bassett.

The Nolan Ryan biography has so many amazing parts. The 324 wins, the 5,714 strikeouts, the seven no-hitters, and the 12 one-hitters. But one part of his career almost defies logic: his durability. From 1971 to 1992 - when he was 45 years old - the pitcher dubbed "The Ryan Express" started at least 26 games every season with the exception of the strike-shortened 1981 campaign. And that was despite shoulder surgery after the 1975 season. It was even more remarkable considering Ryan was not a knuckleballer or a soft tosser but instead threw 100 m.p.h.

A couple of years ago, when Jasir Huff, now 6, suffered a concussion, all his mother was told to do was give him some ibuprofen and keep an eye on him. When Jasir's big brother, Jordan Goins, 12, fell and struck his head on the concrete basketball court at his school in September, it was a whole new ball game. Jordan's pediatrician, who is part of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's primary care network, ordered "cognitive rest" for his concussion. That meant no school, no homework, no computer, no texting, and no video games.

Bobby DelVecchio may not be trying his luck riding bulls anymore. In fact, the 55-year-old hasn't ridden one since the early 1990s. But his fingerprints will still be all over the place this weekend when the Philadelphia Invitational is held at the Wells Fargo Center on Friday and Saturday nights, even if he is not likely to be there. Vital in creating the Professional Bull Riders organization, DelVecchio helped shape the sport of bull riding to what it is today. It's a sport that he says has become much harder, more dangerous, and more physical than he ever could have imagined when he first hopped on a bull four decades ago. "The risk factor is triple what it was before PBR," DelVecchio said over the phone from his home in Texas.

Ania Krawiec can make sweet music with her tennis racket. She can sing, too. Krawiec plays just one sport at Bishop Eustace, starring for the tennis team. But she's also a member of the school choir. "It's just so different" than sports, said Krawiec, a Lumberton resident. "In sports you're running around, conditioning, competing, working so hard to try to improve. Being in the choir and singing is just a great way for me to relax. " Krawiec, a 5-foot-7 athlete who plays righthanded, is one of South Jersey's top tennis players.

THE EAGLES sketched out a scenario Monday that might allow center Jason Kelce to play again this season, but it is a real longshot, two orthopedic surgeons told the Daily News. Head athletic trainer Rick Burkholder said Kelce suffered a partial anterior cruciate ligament tear and a total tear of the medial collateral ligament, when Baltimore safety Ed Reed's helmet hit Kelce's right knee in the third quarter of the Eagles' victory Sunday. Burkholder said Dr. Peter DeLuca, the team's orthopedic surgeon, will examine Kelce's knee with an arthroscope Tuesday.

Lourdes Health System said it would open an ambulatory care center in a vacant building at the corner of Route 70 and Brace Road in Cherry Hill. The $13 million center, to be developed by Rosewood Real Estate Enterprises of Cherry Hill, is expected to open early next year, Lourdes said. Lourdes has a 15-year lease and is expected to spend at least $4 million for equipment and furnishings, spokeswoman Lauren Markin said. The 54,000-square-foot center will be the primary office for Lourdes Cardiology Services and will have physician offices for orthopedics, sports medicine, rheumatology and podiatry.

HOW DO we know it's spring in Philadelphia? Chase Utley's knees are hurting. The Phillies haven't disclosed the name of the specialist Utley, 33, has gone to see, after general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. acknowledged it is likely Utley will begin the season on the disabled list for the second year in a row. A couple of Philadelphia-area orthopedists with sports medicine backgrounds interviewed by the Daily News said they would be very interested in...

Robert E. Colcher, 84, of Center City, medical director of Valley Forge Medical Center & Hospital, died Monday, Feb. 6, of heart failure at Hahnemann University Hospital. In 1958, Dr. Colcher joined what was then Valley Forge Medical Center & Heart Hospital as chief of surgery. He became medical director in 1966 after the death of his father-in-law, Joseph Wolffe, the hospital's medical director and founder. In 1973, Valley Forge Medical Center changed its mission to providing treatment to adults with substance abuse and associated physical, social, and psychological disorders.

Accurate feedback is better for students than bogus praise In another blow to the self-esteem movement, a University of Pennsylvania researcher has found that students are less likely to be depressed if they have accurate views of their performance and get accurate feedback about it. Lead researcher Young-Hoon Kim, a postdoctoral researcher at Penn, worked with Chi-yue Chiu at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, to evaluate the...

BARTOLO COLON is 38. He is not the best-conditioned pitcher on the planet. Bart's playing field should be a lily pad. He should be zapping flies, not breaking bats. By 2009, the right arm that won the American League Cy Young Award in 2005 hung limp as a soup-kitchen dishrag. His elbow was shot. His rotator cuff was torn. The labrum had seen better days. The guy's MRI showed so many loose bodies, it looked like a 1950 TV test pattern. It hurt like hell when he tried to throw.

When a professional athlete in middle age can maintain elite performance, they join a short list. It includes George Blanda, the NFL quarterback and kicker who retired at 48 after 26 seasons; tennis star Martina Navratilova, who won a Grand Slam title two months shy of her 50th birthday; and swimmer Dara Torres, who at 41 earned three silver medals at the Olympics. Then there's boxer Bernard Hopkins, who on Saturday could become the oldest fighter to win a major world title.