Former medical director and team physician for U.S. Soccer, William Elwood Garrett Jr., MD, died peacefully at age 70 following complications from Myelopathy.
Dr. Garrett acted as the physician for both the men and women's national teams for three decades. He also served as the director of research for Concacaf, as appointed by the FIFA Medical Committee and created the Duke University FIFA Medical Center of Excellence in Durham, N.C.
He started as U.S. Soccer's lead physician at the 1994 World Cup on home turf; a tournament that USA narrowly lost 1-0 to eventual winners Brazil in the last 16.
Dr. Garrett graduated from Duke University Medical School and Duke University Graduate School in Durham, N.C., with an MD and PhD in molecular biology and cell biology respectively.
He was also a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee Sports Medicine Society and received several awards for his contributions to orthopedic surgery, including the American Orthopaedic Association's American-British-Canadian Traveling Fellowship and the George Rovere National Teaching Award by the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine.
Dr. Garrett also served as president of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine and the Herodicus Society, as well as serving on the boards of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
"Dr. Garrett was not only a clinician, but a researcher and he was looking at the sport of soccer in the United States when many people in the United States didn’t even know the sport existed," said U.S. Soccer Chief Medical Officer George Chiampas, DO.