Dr Richard Steadman: A profile of sport's unsung hero

· Steadman is a specialist knee surgeon from Colorado

· Saved the careers of Ronaldo, Shearer and Owen

· Find out how astonishing and important his work has been for sport

A major injury is an athlete’s worst nightmare. If one occurs there is always the threat of that player’s career ending abruptly. Amongst sportspeople one acronym gives them fear like no other phrase could; ACL. The initialism stands for Anterior Cruciate Ligament and it is an injury that takes, on average, 9 months of recovery. But even after this rest period, the road to full recuperation is a long one. Furthermore, the injury is the 9th most common in all of sport, as the website’s homepage states (https://injuriesinsport.wixsite.com/injuriesinsport).

The ACL is located in the knee and the act of tearing can occur through contact, tension or an awkward landing; hence its frequency. The severity of the injury is where the issue lies however, as many athletes never fully recover no matter how long they rest for. Michael Redd, an offensive playmaker for the Milwaukee Bucks, suffered the injury in January of 2009. He subsequently missed the remainder of the NBA season. He returned the following year only for lightning to strike the same place twice, as he tore the same ACL again in January 2010. Redd returned once again, but his career with Milwaukee was over, and after one season at the Phoenix Suns; his basketball career was too.

So how do you save a career that looks doomed. You visit the man who has made his name from reviving the livelihoods of athletes who must have feared their time in their sports were over. Richard Steadman is this man.

Ronaldo thought he would never play again (Goal)

Steadman is a specialist knee surgeon. His practice is littered with framed photos, all of which withhold a shirt signed by a world-renowned sporting star. The most heartfelt framed message comes from Tennis star Martina Navratilova, with her message to Steadman reading ‘Thanks for putting a smile on my face, my heart and my knees’ (BBC). Whilst the surgeon is clearly a patriot, having operated on every US skier to have won an Olympic medal since 1978 (as of 2007), his work goes way beyond the boundaries of the USA. Saving the careers of stars from Brazil, Holland and he regularly has clients arrive from the UK.

The doctor is based in Colorado and had been operating on sports stars since 1976, when he was appointed Chief Physician of the USA ski team. His speciality was operating on microfractures, which occur when strenuous activity causes cartilage to wear away around the knee joint. He proved to be a huge asset to the Olympic Ski team and his work did not go unnoticed in the States as he was inducted into the Skiing hall of fame in 2002. His success with the Olympians led to several sporting stars singling out the surgeon as their saviour.

Tiger Woods is perhaps the most famous athlete to use Steadman’s clinic, when he visited in 2008. Woods was beginning to suffer with knee problems and went on to not win an open for 11 years after the surgery, but without Steadman, that drought could have lasted much longer.

Tiger Woods after his Masters voctory (CNBC)

Newcastle United fans are probably those in Britain who are most familiar with Steadman. Michael Owen and Ryan Taylor both called upon the doctor during their playing days, but it was another Newcastle star who benefited from the surgeon’s wonderous talents. Alan Shearer was a goal-scoring machine throughout the nineties, but at the turn of the millennium a significant tear to his knee cartilage hinted at an early retirement for the striker. However, Steadman’s surgery gave Shearer another 6 years of playtime and Newcastle an extra 113 goals.

Ronaldo, Vitali Klitschko, Roy Keane, Kobe Bryant. The list goes on. Steadman was not one for the limelight, once stating ‘I am proud to have treated them, and I’m honoured that they came to me, but if I want to be known for something, I’d rather be known for these things that affect everybody, me included.’ (Wikipedia). But despite his modesty, it is time we celebrated the work of one of sport’s unsung heroes. Injuries can end careers, but Steadman inadvertently gave us sporting memories to savour.

Without him, we never would have seen Ronaldo win the 2002 World Cup. Without him, Shearer would not be the Premier League’s all-time top scorer. Without him, we would not have witnessed Tiger Woods’ brilliance at the 2019 Masters.

Here’s to you Doctor Richard Steadman. Sport’s silent star.