When the Olympic Games returned in 2004 to the ancient city of their birth, Athens, Greece, Dr. Craig Ferrell of Franklin was there. Yet for the orthopaedist and sports medicine expert, serving as an Olympic physician is just like another day at the office. That's because he's been involved in the Olympics for nearly two decades and with United States amateur athletics longer than that.

"I'm looking forward to Athens because I will see so many familiar faces," Ferrell says. "One of the nicest things about being involved with the Olympic team is the network of friends and medical friends that you make, which will be there for you as a resource."

An accomplished swimmer and former member of the varsity swim team at his undergraduate alma mater, the University of Notre Dame, Ferrell naturally entered the world of amateur athletics via his swimming contacts. He acknowledges that his father, the late Joel Ferrell, was a driving influence. Joel Ferrell was once president of the Amateur Athletic Union and a former vice president of the U.S. Olympic Committee. Each year the AAU recognizes the top athlete in each official sport with the Joel Ferrell Outstanding Performance Memorial Award. Ferrell says his father encouraged his involvement in the sports medicine program for U.S. swimmers in the late 1970s, but "the interest was all mine," he says.

"I worked my way up, by exposure to the team and coaches, and got into more and more responsible roles," Ferrell recalls. Eventually, he chaired the USA Swimming Sports Medicine Division for about a decade. In 1988, Ferrell was the physician at training camp for the U.S. Olympic swimmers but didn't travel to Seoul, Korea. He filled the same role in 1992, but did accompany the team to Barcelona, Spain. Then, in 1996 in Atlanta, Ferrell reached the top, serving as one of eight U.S. Olympic Committee team physicians. "You usually only get to do that once in your lifetime," he explains. In '96, Ferrell continued his care of America's swimmers, but added the equestrian athletes to his responsibility roster. "None of the other docs rode or were really comfortable around horses," he says, yet it was a natural fit for Ferrell. He and his wife, Lorraine, raise hunter jumpers on their 50-acre Williamson County farm.

To his wife's delight, Ferrell made the switch from swimming to equestrian sports and was the equestrian team physician in 2000 in Sydney, Australia, and will be again in Athens this month. He's one of three physicians (the others are from England and Italy) who make up the medical committee for the Federation Equestre Internationale, the sport's world governing panel, which is recognized by the International Olympic Committee. He's also chairman of the Anti-Doping Committee for the U.S. Equestrian Federation Inc. In these capacities, Ferrell and his colleagues help set guidelines for legitimate pharmaceutical use by athletes in competition. For example, they say yes or no to "therapeutic use exemptions," filed by athletes who need to take a specific medication and are requesting the necessary permission.

"Some of the TUEs are kind of a rubber stamp," he explains. "If an athlete gets a rash from poison ivy and wants to use an over-the-counter cortisone cream, he or she has to file a TUE. The same if a swimmer gets an external ear infection and needs to use cortisone ear drops. We're not really worried about people using ear drops for a competitive advantage, it's just that the cortisone will show up in their system and officials will want to know how it got there."

Asked if such testing has gone too far, Ferrell says, "A little, actually, in my opinion. I think it's gotten beyond the original intent. The original intent was a level playing field. It's just like any bureaucracy. The details of it are so onerous that it can be a problem. But I think for the legitimate attempts to cheat, like the steroids scandal that's plaguing track and field, it's long overdue."

Ferrell says the physical stamina required of an equestrian athlete surprises many. "It's a lot more demanding than you think. When I first started, I thought, 'Well, the horse does all the work, and the rider's just sitting there.' But that's not the case," he says. "There are a lot of physical demands on the rider. Most of it is technique, savvy and experience, but you still have to have the physical skills and leg strength. It's a physically demanding sport."

Ferrell leaves Aug. 11 for Athens and expects to return Aug. 30.

Franklin's first orthopaedist, Ferrell founded the Bone & Joint Clinic in 1979. The employees celebrated the clinic's 25th anniversary with a party at the Ferrell's farm this summer. Today, nine physicians are involved in the practice and two more will on board by this fall, he says.

Ferrell received his medical degree from Tulane University in New Orleans and remained in New Orleans for his internship and general surgery residency at the Ochsner Clinic. He completed his orthopaedic surgery residency at the Campbell Clinic in Memphis.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED - Friday, August 6, 2004