Where do you begin? Where do you begin when the task is to introduce the 50th president of the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine, renowned professor, researcher, academician, superb surgeon and clinician, lifelong team physician, recipient of the highest awards from both AOSSM and the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, a true renaissance man whose leadership has helped to shape this great society. So where do you begin? Well you begin in the beginning. Born on February 8th, 1959 in Teaneck, New Jersey as the second of two boys to the late Dottie and Hardy Spindler, he with his brother Mark and parents had a truly tight-knit family that allowed him to navigate his early years with that confidence and that poise that we now know of him. Now no doubt everyone here remembers those formative years, those years that not every single detail or facet of life was perfectly smooth. Well Kurt during his formative years was actually pretty cool. Though he didn't have the longest hair in his group, he certainly did have the coolest shirts and he definitely cruised with the coolest wheels. I mean in those years who didn't love being in a white caddo? Now Kurt though was multifaceted back then. He wasn't just a pure intellectual. He enjoyed all types of sports growing up. He was a star football player, a star baseball player, and even ventured onto the wrestling mats as a star wrestler. But he also realized that his passion was academics and he graduated from Rutgers University in 1981 and then the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in 1985 and he stayed at Penn completing his orthopedic residency in 1990. Followed then by his sports medicine fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic in 1991 where he became a member of a most elite club called the Warthogs. But with his formal training completed, the Vanderbilt years began and Kurt thrived there for 23 years enjoying a truly great life that was filled with family and friends and Vanderbilt sporting events steeped in tradition and history all while nurturing and cultivating an outstanding clinical, academic, and research career. He served as head team physician for Vanderbilt University, director of the Vanderbilt Sports Medicine Center, vice chairman of orthopedics and rehabilitation, medical director of the orthopedic patient care center, and professor of orthopedics and rehabilitation. He was always, always available, very quick to the diagnosis, and there was no task that was too menial, even filling the Vanderbilt hot air balloon when necessary. But in 2014, he felt the draw of the Warthog and was recruited back to his fellowship home, the Cleveland Clinic. And so his second career began where he helped to further nurture and cultivate such a great sports medicine program as an outstanding clinician, surgeon, researcher, and educator. Professor of orthopedics at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, the vice chair of research at the Cleveland Clinic Orthopedic and Rheumatologic Institute, the director of clinical outcomes and academic director of sports health at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. But as the Cleveland Clinic expanded southward, Kurt assumed in 2020 vital roles navigating the clinic's sports initiative in the Sunshine State, Florida. There he continues all his outstanding clinical and surgical, academic, and research efforts as professor of orthopedics for the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. But in spite of all those responsibilities, he still finds some time to do some things that are fun, no doubt. But when we think of Kurt, we think of research. He has educated the field of orthopedics and sports medicine in evidence-based medicine and the use of patient-reported outcome measures. He has mentored the next generation of clinician scientists and sports orthopedic surgeons. And he has led the formation of several large multi-center prospective cohorts and randomized control trials that have undoubtedly changed our clinical practice. He has been the chairman of the Medical Grant Review Committee of the National Football League Charities, member of the Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Sciences Studies Section of NIH, a board of trustees member for the Orthopedic Research and Education Foundation, chair of the Clinical Research Committee of the Orthopedic Research Society, a permanent member of the AMSC Studies Section of NIH, and a chair of the Academy's Research Development Committee. And his research efforts have been recognized with virtually every AOSSM award, 2001 Caboud Sports Basic Science Research Award, the 2001 O'Donoghue Sports Injury Research Award, the 2005, the 2009 Caboud, the 2012 Kappa Delta Award from the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons and the Orthopedic Research Foundation, the 2014 O'Donoghue Award, the 2016 David Sisk Award, I'm getting tired reading all these, the 27 O'Donoghue Sports Injury Research Award. But Kurt is equally passionate about education, perpetually mentoring, mentoring others on clinical diagnosis and surgical technique and rehabilitation. With 185 peer-reviewed publications and over 500 regional, national, and international presentations, always, always pushing the envelope of our specialty by continuously asking, how can we do this better? The mantra of all outstanding educators. But certainly with decades-long passion for AOSSM, he has been involved in virtually all aspects of this great society, as an educator and as a researcher. He has left his fingerprint on AOSSM with involvement in numerous committees, research committee, board of member as an at-large member, nominating committee, membership committee, program committee, program chair, our board of directors, our medical publishing board of trustees, and now as the 50th president of AOSSM. But research and academics, they're not Kurt's only passions. As I said, he's a true renaissance man. He loves a variety of recreational activities, but most of all, their family dogs and cycling, cycling anywhere and everywhere, perhaps maybe most especially on Cape Cod near the family's Wellfleet home. But equally important to him is fine dining, with I think seafood and perhaps ice cream topping the list. He's definitely a renaissance man with passion for so many things in life, but his true passion in life is family. From heartfelt memories of his parents to time spent with his brother Mark, to his children, his son Eric married to Becca, his daughter Kelsey, and his wife Beth's two children, Nick and Rachel, and of course, of course his two grandchildren, Brooklyn and Weston. Each of them bringing joy, such joy to him and to Beth, and in fact, he would do anything for them, even Halloweening as perhaps one of our favorite Star Wars characters. And then there's Beth, who shares with him so many of life's interests and also life's love. And so you see, he embodies all the clinical, the surgical, the academic, and the personal qualities that we aspire to. And so it is with great honor that I present to you the 50th president of the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine, but I do so by first welcoming a most special friend of AOSSM, someone who has served as our executive director for 15 years prior to his retirement and who guided this outstanding society to such great heights, Irv Bomberger. We're so honored to have Irv and his very, very famous guitar skills accompanying the leaders of our society down this aisle as they escort our 50th president, Kurt Spindler. Thank you.

Kurt Spindler

American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine

president

orthopedics

career