Thank you very much, and thanks to our trumpeter. I salute to him who played Summon the Heroes. And to all of you who have served our great nation, you are my hero. What an honor to be escorted to the podium by many of the giants of our profession. I know that you all know this quote by Sir Isaac Newton, but never has it been more apropos. Those who have preceded me in this position are a literal who's who of sports medicine. It's been a career goal to get this gig, and I almost ran out of time. I vividly remember the first AOSAC meeting that I attended as a resident. I was literally awestruck by the sports medicine rock stars that were there. I'm proud of this organization, and I'm proud of you all as members. I think I was finally selected to be president largely because of my wife, Anne. She modeled some people skills that I somehow ignored from kindergarten on in my quest to succeed professionally. Fittingly, that made her the first lady of AOSSM, and her friends call her Flossom, which I think is really cool because AOSSM is awesome. Now I'm going to take a chance here because it may cause someone in my family to lose a bet early, but I owe this to Anne. To paraphrase a line from A Man Called Otto, starring the incredible Tom Hanks, my life was black and white until I met Anne. She was the color. In addition to my wife, Anne, I'd like to recognize my other family and friends in the audience today. Thank you to my children, Mike, Matt, Mason, Missy, and to their spouses, Kirby, Lauren, Rachel, and Brannon, all successful in their chosen careers and producing and parenting eight grandchildren so far. Thank you, you guys. I love you. And a shout out to Anne's two sons, Jamie and Patrick, also kicking it in their respective careers. Thank you to my UVA partners for picking up the slack this year. I'd also like to recognize my chair, Dr. Bobby Chabra, who has encouraged me along this journey. If you're ever in Charlottesville, we invite you to visit the house that Bobby built, the UVA Orthopedic Center at Ivy Road. And I'd like to acknowledge those that are no longer with us, my parents, Lieutenant General and Mrs. Monty Miller, who taught me to reach for the stars, and my lifetime mentor, Freddie Food, who taught me how to get there. So there are so many others that I'd like to recognize, including the AOSSM Board of Directors and the Presidential Line, Drs. Michael Ciccotti, Kurt Spindler, Dean Taylor, Chris Kading, and Eric McCarty, who will join us on Sunday morning. Eric. Also, I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to the professional team spearheaded by our CEO, Greg Dummer. I would also like to express my gratitude with a special thanks to his number two, Christina Tommaso, who helped me finalize this address. I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to my lifetime friend and your Kennedy lecturer for this year, Dr. Darren Johnson. We both spent a decade in Pittsburgh one year. I'd also like to recognize my colleague and friend, Dr. Steve Thompson, who helped me with the review course and co-authored several editions of Review of Orthopedics and Deleon Drez over the years and rocks a great pink sport coat. I'm forever grateful to Jen and Joe Hart for their two decades of service to UVA Orthopedics. And for all of the UVA Sports Medicine family, past, present, and future, remember to keep your wings level and be a Rock. I'd like to give a shout out also to the program directors this year, Dr. Stephen Brockmeyer and Robin West, the dynamic duo who put together a tremendous program. To all the rest of my esteemed colleagues, mentors, partners, fellows, residents, medical students, scribes, nurses, staff, friends, et cetera, please consider this your shout out and accept my apologies, but I've got to get on with this speech. So I started my presidency immediately after our golden 50th year anniversary gala at the Broadmoor. We had just completed a new strategic plan and awarded almost a million dollars in research funds to our members. So I asked myself, how can we top that? I thought about it and I remembered the 51st Super Bowl was promoted as LI. They probably decided not to use Roman numerals for the 50th game because, well, who wants to buy swag with an L on it? Therefore I thought it was appropriate to borrow the LI moniker to signify our organization's entry into its second half century, capped by our meeting in the nation's capital. When I thought about it more, I decided to take it one step further. As the premier sports medicine organization in the world, I proposed that we should lead L with improvement, innovation, inclusion, and inspiration. This falls nicely in line with our new strategic plan and has been our focus for the past year. Allow me to elaborate. Improvement. We improve through education. The strategic plan has designated education, knowledge access as the top priority for AOSSM. As a former education chair and program chair and the so-called king of review, I've been intimately involved in education for all of my career. I'd like to thank everybody for that opportunity. I give you a little background about this. We started this early on as we proceeded with our educational pursuits. I appreciate all that we've done in that area. And so I have a passion for education and love to interact with medical students, et cetera. And so as Arno Glazo said, improvement begins with I. Indeed, it's up to each of us to try to keep up with the rapidly evolving knowledge of orthopedic sports medicine. We've all observed surgeons who still perform out-of-date procedures, were taught decades earlier, that no longer reflect the best interests of their patients. And AOSSM can help us with that. They can help us stay current on the art and science of our specialty as we all make a commitment to lifelong learning. One of our initiatives this year was to foster improvement by reevaluating what education means in the post-COVID world. A fresh look at how we educate will better serve our members, especially our younger members, the so-called next-gen learners, who may assimilate things differently than our senior leaders, myself included. I struggled early in medical school until I realized that if you knew all the material, then the tests were easy. So I started to summarize the material and then summarize the summary, added charts, tables, and composite figures. This resulted in the template for the middle-reviewed text, which I started on day one of my residency. And as successful as that was for me, I realized that others have different ways of learning. Improved education requires an investment in resources and time. And we worked closely with the Institute for Association and Nonprofit Research, conducting a thorough education assessment. One of their recommendations was to meet the demand for on-demand education, and we plan to do that. But the investment will pay off because, as Benjamin Franklin noted, an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. Brian Wolf, the Associate Director of Education at Joyce Pascal, have led us into this era of improved education. We took a deep dive in our educational offerings, and I'm very excited to see what ideas surface as we embark upon our goal of improving on improvement. That brings us to innovation, the next I. Innovation is achieved through research. Unlike my immediate predecessor in the presidential line who introduced me today, I'm kind of known more of as a closet researcher, completing projects on nights and weekends in dark labs with little fanfare. I often tell my residents and fellows that every project needs a locomotive, engineering projects on to completion and publication. We've all seen too many projects go off track, so I encourage you all to be good engineers and arrive at the station on time. The late Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple and chairman of Pixar, noted that innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. Since our message is all about leadership, we should take note. But how does innovation relate to research? Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, answers that question for us. The way you get innovation is you fund research. AWS SM has funded research to the tune of over a half million dollars last year, culminating in the big reveal. Congratulations to Drs. Bethen Schubenstein and Parikh. And more research funds are on their way. The Aircast Foundation has funded an additional $450,000 to the runner-up of last year's multi-center competition. Congratulations to Dr. Nepple and his team from Washington University, who will lead a multi-center study on optimizing outcomes of hip surgery in borderline acetabular dysplasia. There's no celestial name there, but oh, bad's pretty cool. Additionally, the Arthritis Foundation is collaborating with our society to develop new projects to evaluate post-traumatic arthritis. And several other projects are underway, including the Young Investigators Grant, the JRF Research Grant, the Return to Play Grant, and the Playmaker Grant. We recently invested in Proposals Central, an online grant management system that's enhanced our ability to apply for, fund, track, and collaborate on projects to include those with the Orthopedic Research and Education Foundation. This tool has given our research committee the ability to review and score research applications online, and allows faster responses and improved collaboration. Your society has made innovation and research foundations of our strategic plan and top priorities for our organization. However, funding must be paired with leadership. This year, we welcomed Dr. Lynette Kraft to our professional team. Lynette has a strong background in academia and has worked with the American College of Sports Medicine for several years. Together with our Chairman of Research, Dr. Ben Ma, we stand poised to launch AOSSM Research into its second half century. We're also grateful to our industry partners. Early in my career, I shied away from industry, mistakenly believing that I could be tainted by what I considered overt influence. Perhaps this is because the military discouraged relations with industry, down to forbidding free doughnuts and ink pens. I now recognize and value industry because they are partners sharing similar goals with the surgeons they serve. Many of the grants mentioned earlier are supported with investments from our corporate partners. And with the help of their members, their innovations result in tools and implants that we use daily in our craft. A special thank you to Melanie Stanton, who has excelled in managing corporate and individual giving. She, along with the corporate advisory group composed of corporate organizations that are elite in your society leadership, is actively pursuing many collaborative efforts. The very nature of research would not have all the answers. Albert Einstein noted that if we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? That's what makes research so exciting. I encourage all members to put on your thinking caps, investigate something that you've always wondered about, challenge dogma, finish that lingering project and share it with others. Be a locomotive. Next, I'd like to address inclusion. Inclusion is an American ideal and should be at the heart of any organization that has education as a fundamental mission. Growing up as a military brat, I never gave that much thought as it deserves. But it's simply a matter of recognition and acceptance, putting yourself in someone else's shoes. AOSSM welcomes all members and prospective members regardless of race, gender, sexuality or background, and as an extension of that, seeks to mentor, encourage and support those who apply for senior leadership positions in our society. Jesse Jackson noted that inclusion is not a matter of political correctness. It's the key to growth. And growth is an important goal in our recently adopted strategic plan. Okay, well, how do we do that? The answer lies within our professional team and key committees, including the membership committee, the Council of Delegates, the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee or DEI. Allow me to expand on some ongoing initiatives in this area in our society. One of the core principles and a key strategic initiative is to recruit and retain new members. There are several thousand general orthopedic surgeons out there who are also practicing sports medicine. We'll be reaching out to those individuals to make sure they're aware and make themselves available to see our plethora of sports medicine-specific education content. We're welcoming new members by simplifying the application process, offering reduced rates for qualifying candidates and resident members, and giving all members, existing and new, more bang for their buck through exciting programs that are meetings, online, and meaningful opportunities such as hands-on training and testing. Of course, AOSSM also prides itself on providing new members with insightful mentorship, a defining part of AOSSM's identity. Our Emerging Leader Committee has hosted several successful virtual nightcap meetings and is launching an exciting new initiative. Your 2024 president, Dr. Dean Taylor, who has a passion for coaching and mentoring leaders, has worked with Ginny Rameon and the Emerging Leaders Committee to develop, in partnership with Great on the Job, a new program called BOLD, Boosting Orthopedic Leaders Development. This immersive two-year opportunity was offered exclusively to AOSSM active and candidate members under the age of 45. Eighteen playmakers were chosen, and they will engage in executive leadership education, collaboration with peers in a group project, and receive one-on-one coaching and mentoring to hone their leadership skills in the field. The first BOLD cohort kicked off at this meeting. Look for exciting new things from this initiative. And we are piloting a new mentor program this week. We matched society leaders with younger members, and these mentors and mentees connected this week to make plans for future interactions. We are actively seeking diversity and inclusion in all of our programs. This is a major focus of the Volunteer Appointment Committee, or VAC, who selects members for the AOSSM committees. OK, one might ask, what's the difference between diversity and inclusion? Verna Myers, who is an expert on this topic, provides a nice analogy. Diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance. For example, we are partnering with the Gladden Society to invite diverse speakers to annual meetings. We have partnered with the Forum, a membership group for sports medicine fellowship trained women orthopedic surgeons, for a recent orthopedic learning center course, as well as an annual meeting on education and networking. And we are proactively recruiting and encouraging diversity in our selections for AOSSM leadership positions and committees, which are being modernized to match our strategic plan. At AOSSM, we have taken intentional steps to ensure a more inclusive future. In addition to integrating DEI into our new strategic plan, in 2022, we formalized the DEI task force into a committee. This committee is led by Drs. Joel Boyd and Connie Chu, and has liaisons with other committees such as education, membership, and fellowship. This will help us ensure we're asking everybody at the party to dance. I want to talk about DEI a little more in depth. First, let's keep in mind there are many types of diversity. Race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, culture, socioeconomic background, disability, and more. So think for a minute, and even visualize the diversity in these many categories, as you will, in the various places in your life, your family and extended family, your clinics, your operating rooms, your department meetings, your places of worship, your golf clubs or gyms, your neighborhood. Some type of diversity may be obvious, and some may not be. But I hope we can all agree that diversity enriches us. It makes us better, more balanced, or open to wider points of view. Those are good things. Those are indeed good things. My very accomplished sister once told me, pejoratively, though with humor, that I was male, pale, and stale. Well, two of those things I can't do anything about, but one I can. So let's truly embrace strategic ways to advance needed DEI initiatives to enrich who we are and what we do. Racism is not always overt. In fact, there's a whole lexicon of terms for prejudice or bias. Inherent bias involves underlying assumptions. Systemic bias is institutional. And implicit bias may be unintentional. The term woke simply means to be alert to racial prejudice and discrimination. You don't have to lean left to be woke. A quick story before we leave this important topic. I'm a fan of the NBC series New Amsterdam. In season three, Dr. Max Goodwin, the hospital medical director, decided that today is the day he's going to address systemic racism in his hospital. He spends the first part of the day trying to tackle the symptoms, but later takes the time to speak one-on-one with a few dozen doctors, hospital employees, and patients. His interview touched on just a few of the real-life biases affecting the work of the New Amsterdam team and, of course, each of us here. For example, an African-American woman noted it took much longer for him to learn the name of the department head to learn the names of her versus the name of her Caucasian colleagues. Another Hispanic surgeon noted that she's not a Puerto Rican surgeon or a woman surgeon, but a surgeon. These conversations demonstrate the importance of integrating DEI programs into all aspects of health care. The same is true of orthopedic surgery in our field. We've made progress, but there's much more to be done. Inclusion also requires collaboration. AOSSM is collaborating with many other societies, including ISACOS, the International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery, and Orthopedic Sports Medicine, and ESCA, the European Society for Sports Traumatology, Knee Surgery, and Arthroscopy. And we had a successful pre-meeting with AOS and the Biologic Association. AOSSM was the guest society for the Orthopedic Research Society this year. We have robust relationships, including speaker exchanges with many other organizations, including the American Academy of Physical Therapy, the American College of Sports Medicine, the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine, or AMSSM, and the National Athletic Trainers Association, NATA. In fact, speaking of NATA, we just completed our collaboration with them on establishing a collegiate standard of care resource toolkit for all levels of college athletics. A special thanks to our 40th president, Dr. Peter Indelicato, who spearheaded this effort for our society. Our organization shares many goals with these groups. We all strive to give the best care to athletes at all levels of competition, from the playground to the Olympics. It's our mission to educate surgeons focusing on sports medicine, and we're doing just that. Our new website includes a novel search engine called OnePlace. As a member, it's now possible to instantaneously search 50 years of sports medicine education, research, publishing, and other content. Through AI, our highly sophisticated technology platform will intuitively learn your areas of interest and be ready to welcome you each visit with an understanding of your personal preferences. Our game-changer session this meeting included symposia on leadership, practice management, and performance optimization. We just held an international session with ISACOS entitled Global All-Stars for Arthroscopy, and the session on team physician was important because we're uniquely positioned as the only orthopedic society to offer a complete and comprehensive sports medicine perspective. We're planning right now for a new standalone course with an across-the-board holistic approach to the team physician's role at the high school, college, and professional levels. While I'm on the topic of the team physician, allow me to address some recent challenges to our role. As I'm sure many of you are aware, some of our members have been subjected to excessive malpractice claims and unqualified expert testimony that threatened their role and our society as a whole. We created an open letter with 28 supporting organizations including AAOS, AMSSM, NATA, and many of the professional league physician associations as signatories. If you've not yet read this letter, take a moment at the meeting to pick up our most recent issue of AJSM, Sports Health, or the upcoming AAOS Now. As a result, ESPN has taken an interest in the critical dilemma. They published an article last month, and you should stay tuned for more on this important issue. Inclusion includes all of us. As your president, I promise that AASM will continue to focus on that principle and consider the views and values of every member and prospective member. And finally, that leads us with inspiration. This one needs no parenthetical explanation. It's been an inspiration to lead AASM into its second half century. Let's start with the definition of inspiration, the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative. Well, one may ask how an organization like AASM can stimulate you to do something special or creative. Let's hear from the members themselves. Dr. Bob Arciero, our former president, had this to say. The tremendous commitment that I've seen from this group inspires me to take better care of my patients. More recently, emerging leader Jacqueline Brady had this to say. For one thing, everybody is a sports patient in their own way, young and old, no matter what activity they're doing. And that keeps it broad, which is nice. But they're also really motivated. I think they'll drive you nuts if you're not careful. They're like, when can I get back? Can I take my brace off? Do I really have to keep weight off of this thing? But they want to get back. And there's nothing more inspiring than standing on the sidelines watching one of my athletes who struggled through injury and surgery get out there and succeed and get back to what they love doing. Even our motto is inspirational. We keep you in the game. So what role can creativity play? And what ways can we be creative? Well, a few things come to mind. It's exciting to witness the evolution of augmented and virtual reality in our world. It's inspiring to see many of you develop new tools for our trade. It's rewarding to observe the spring sports medicine fellows get out of a jam in the OR, going from plan A to plan B, and maybe plan C. Look around the room. How many of you are also musicians, artists, woodworkers, handymen? To stay inspired, harness your creative energy, both in and out of work. When we were both cadets at the Air Force Academy some 45 years ago, I was strongly influenced by the leadership of Wing Commander Ed Rice. He inspired me to become a leader. I encourage you to attend the leadership session, Game Changer, tomorrow morning, so you can be inspired by General Rice and an all-star panel of sports and sports medicine leaders. So as we wrap up, let me reflect on what I found inspirational this past presidential year. Utilizing our strategic plan developed under the leadership of our 50th president, Dr. Kurt Spindler, let's briefly highlight three key initiatives in each component. Education, the education assessment, partnership with other societies, and this, our 51st annual meeting. Research, new leadership, multi-center awards, industry partnerships, foundational community. This consists of three components. We'll take each separately. This consists of three components. We'll take each separately. Team physician support, risk management initiatives, the new team physician course, a refocus on subspecialty certification, member value, recruiting and retaining members, mentoring, the BOLD program, and finally inclusion, our new DEI committee, collaboration, and committee modernization. As I traveled this past year, I gained a better perspective of how our organization is honored and valued literally around the world. It's been inspiring to be your ambassador. I recall when my neighbor, an orthopedic surgeon from a local community hospital, told me one time, Mark, I have a job, but you have a career. Well, well, well into the fourth quarter of that career, I'm inspired by my younger colleagues. It reminds me of the concept of paying it forward and modeling, coaching, and mentoring these bright young surgeons. For example, we had a recent late cancellation in the OR that shut us down for several hours early. So rather than heading back to the office or going home early, and with the kitchen pass in hand, I invited my resident and fellow out for a spontaneous golf outing. Those kind of acts, including hosting journal clubs, buying lunch for the clinic or the OR, having a beverage with the team, hosting dinners for special occasions, and other initiatives pay off well into the future. Hopefully those young doctors will adopt that same philosophy and do the same as their hair grays or goes away. In conclusion, this organization, your organization is truly inspiring, and it's only going to get better. The board of directors and incoming presidential line includes the best and the brightest. The professional team is superbly qualified and wholly committed to AOSSM. The committees are all making valuable contributions. The journals remain on the top of the heap. And our members, you are the best. Remember, we offer something that no other society in orthopedic surgery can, the knowledge and expertise to help you be a better team physician, and the only pathway to subspecialty certification. As more teams and organizations mandate this certification, we'll continue to encourage our members to seek it and help them to achieve it. It's been a great 51st year for our society. We led by improvement, innovation, inclusion, and inspiration. So as I ride off into the sunset, I'm proud of our past and inspired by our future. Thank you for the honor to serve this awesome society.

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