The Sports Doc
From a college student at the University of Maryland to performing orthopedic surgery and serving the football team at Jasper High School, Dr. Jeffrey Cuomo has lived an interesting and abundant life. Now as he sets his eyes toward a new chapter, he won’t forget the town he fell in love with—and that fell in love with him.
Words and Images by Al Blanton
Serendipity brought Lenny and Jeffrey together on an elevator at the Student Union in College Park, Maryland.
They were two young college students—one black, one white—in the prime of their lives, both staring down a bright future. Lenny would eventually be drafted by the Boston Celtics as the #1 pick in the 1986 NBA Draft, and Jeffrey would go on to medical school and spend half a lifetime performing surgery on patients with a litany of orthopedic issues.
An engineering student at the time, Jeffrey had seen Lenny on many occasions at the Student Union, and while he had never met him, he noted how friendly the University of Maryland basketball star was to everyone he met. Now he was face-to-face with the 6-foot-8 rim-rocker.
“What’s up, Shorty?” Lenny said as he stepped onto the elevator.
Holy crap. Jeffrey thought to himself. I just met Len Bias.
That was 1985. Thirty-five years later, Dr. Jeffrey Cuomo reflects on his meeting with the Terrapins’ superstar, one whose life was tragically cut short by a cocaine overdose just prior to his highly anticipated pro career.“He was a super nice guy,” Cuomo says. “He was always very friendly. He would say ‘hi’ to everybody. But everybody was ‘shorty.’”
Before attending Maryland, Cuomo grew up in nearby Ellicott City, which was at the time a slow-moving suburb of the D.C./Baltimore area. “My cousins used to tease us,” Cuomo says, “that we would be knocking over cows on our way home.”
Though Cuomo grew up in rural America, that experience did not deter him from pursuing the American Dream. After graduating from the University of Maryland-College Park, he moved to Philadelphia to attend medical school at Hahnemann School of Medicine (now Drexel School of Medicine). While in Philadelphia, Cuomo drank in the frills of the big city: he attended Eagles’ games at Veterans Memorial Stadium, ran up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and had his picture made by the Rocky statue, and watched university crew races on Saturdays with his med school buddies. He also loved to sample the wide variety of cuisine that the City of Brotherly Love had to offer.
“Of course you can’t forget Gino’s and Pat’s,” he reminisces. “And the cheesesteak places were pretty awesome.”
After his time in Philly, Cuomo did his residency at Tulane University in New Orleans. He was well on track to become an orthopedic surgeon when tragedy struck.
“Between my senior year of residency and fellowship, I lost my dad,” he says.
Seemingly in the prime of his life and in great shape, Salvatore Cuomo had a sudden heart attack and passed away unexpectedly.
Reeling from this event, Jeffrey accepted a fellowship at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore where he could be closer to his grieving mother. There, he focused on sports medicine and arthroscopy. He had become intrigued with the discipline after he blew out his ACL while snow skiing in college.
After a few years, he and another doctor launched a private practice in Salisbury, Maryland, on the eastern shore, in close proximity to where he used to spend summers.
Cuomo worked in a Level 2 trauma center for 8 years. It was a busy 2-man operation and he was constantly on call. As the workload continued to grow, he and his partner tossed around the idea of bringing in a third team member to offset the onerous requirements of the trauma practice. When the two men couldn’t seem to get on the same page, Cuomo, increasingly frustrated and burned out, began looking for other options. Soon a small orthopedic practice in Jasper, Alabama, came into view.
While scouring the Internet for potential jobs, Kimberly Cuomo, Jeffrey’s wife, noticed that Southern Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Associates (SOSA) was looking to bring in another surgeon to its already robust orthopedic practice. “I had always been a closet Alabama fan and followed Alabama football, so my wife was like ‘what place would be better to go?’” Cuomo recalls. “We could work in Alabama and get to go the Alabama football games!”
Eventually, Cuomo flew to Jasper for an interview.
Sherrie Pike, who works as an administrator at SOSA, remembers the first time she met Cuomo at the airport. “I am there with my sign—his name neatly written—waiting at the bottom of the escalators, and I am expecting this typical doctor, probably wearing a shirt and tie,” Sherrie remembered. “To my surprise, I see this Italian fella sporting a Baltimore Ravens football jersey. We never looked back.”
Though Cuomo’s primary job was seeing patients and performing surgery at the clinic, his secondary responsibility was serving as the team orthopedist for the Walker Viking (now Jasper Viking) football team. Since Cuomo’s three daughters were all students in the Jasper City school system, this dynamic provided a perfect segue into working with the team.
Over the years, Cuomo was a sideline fixture at both home and away games, traveling to dozens of stadiums on Friday nights with his beloved Vikings. “I loved working with the football team,” Cuomo says. “I really enjoyed spending time with the kids. I really enjoyed spending time and getting to know [athletic trainer] Bob [White]. I think he’s a phenomenal guy. He’s just a wealth of information. I just enjoyed hanging out with him on the sidelines.”
Now Cuomo is poised to turn the page to the newest chapter of his life. He and Kim recently moved to Tuscaloosa to be closer to his daughters, Madison, Amanda, and Anna. He accepted a job at Tuscaloosa Orthopedics and Joint Institute, where he will pair with Dr. Brian King, a joint surgeon who has both a medical degree and a Ph.D.
Though he is now a few miles up the road, Cuomo will always look back on his time in Jasper fondly. And even though he has a new gig and he’s closer to his favorite college football team, he hopes that Jasper won’t grow too distant. After all, it’s where he’s invested the last 11 years of his life.
“When Kim and I came here, we really felt like we’d found a diamond in the rough,” Cuomo said. “We loved the small town feel and the people were just wonderful. Jasper really is a treasure and we were so pleased to make it our home.” 78