Dr. Casolaro landed the job after one of his former professors of medicine at George Washington University, in Washington, retired from the post. He recalled walking in to the Redskins' administrative offices to interview with then team owner John Kent Cooke. He saw former Redskins players Sonny Jurgensen and Bobby Mitchell, “my childhood heroes. I saw the Super Bowl trophies. After that, I knew I was interested in doing it.”
Once the NFL season starts, he holds a clinic at the Redskins facility every Thursday afternoon, and he's on the sidelines for all of the games. His three children, aged 18–22, sometimes join him on away games. “The family can't come on the team plane, but they might join me in a city, like New York, Philadelphia, or Tampa Bay,” he said. “New York is an annual trip that they all try to go to.”
Dr. Casolaro said he finds fulfillment in the relationships he forms with the coaches, staff, and some of the players. “You often end up helping their families when they have medical problems,” he said. “You act as an advisor. But mostly [the players are] your patients. Many of them will come to see me even after they've retired from football.”
He said that, in the care he provides to the team, he considers the best interest of each player. “I've worked with five coaches and two owners, all of whom have said, 'the most important thing is that you take care of the players and do the right thing for them,' “Dr. Casolaro said. “People don't view that because you see movies and TV shows where it looks like teams, coaches, or doctors will compromise a player's health to win. That is just not the case. It's anything but that.”
For the Redskins, he continued, “the medical team is part of the team. For example, let's say you have a player who has asthma. Maybe he doesn't feel well [so you] maximize his treatment regimen. Then he plays very well. You feel a part of that [success]. Coach [Joe] Gibbs has given me and the orthopedic surgeon on our team game balls for our help in winning important games.”
In his office, Dr. Casolaro displays a game ball from last season's 14–13 win over the Cowboys.
Helping MLB Rookies Get on Track
Every January, Dr. Robert L. Pyles joins about eight other mental health professionals who serve as consultants for Major League Baseball's rookie development program. Each MLB team sends three promising rookies to the event, where, over the course of a long weekend, they get advice from veteran players and experts on everything from how to deal with the media to how to manage their finances.
During one part of the program, the Second City comedy group performs a series of skits that depict situations the rookies might find themselves in as players, such as “scams, like getting roped in by professional gamblers,” said Dr. Pyles, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who practices in Wellesley Hills, Mass. After the skits, the players break into small groups of 8–10 for discussion; each group is moderated by a mental health professional and a veteran baseball player.
“There's a lot of talk in the group about psychological techniques for enhancing athletic performance, but there's also a lot of talk about what a strain this kind of life is on [having] a stable relationship, and a lot of [talk] about tension in the clubhouse, tensions between ethnic groups, that sort of thing,” said Dr. Pyles, who is also the current president of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society.
At the end of the program, Dr. Pyles gives the players his contact information and tells them they can call him confidentially if they need help. “On average, I hear from one or two of the players in the group at some point,” he said.
Dr. Pyles' interest in helping young athletes dates back almost three decades to when he suffered a stress fracture in his foot 10 days before running his first Boston Marathon. “I got clinically depressed; I couldn't believe it,” he said.
His orthopedist told him that it's common for athletes to become depressed or anxious when they get injured. “I got interested in the whole phenomenon and interested in the role of athletics for how some people really cope with life,” he said.
Specifically, Dr. Pyles said, he learned to appreciate the importance of sports to an athlete's psychological and emotional well-being.
“These are mostly young people who have had sports at the center of their lives since they were small,” he said of the MLB rookies. “Their talent was recognized early, and they have been supported and adored in many ways. There's a tremendous amount riding on making it or not making it. When they can't [compete] anymore because of injury or aging or whatever, it has a huge effect on their [lives].”