Medical Advisory Board
Dr. Barry P. Boden
Dr. Barry P. Boden specializes in sports medicine at The Orthopaedic Center, a division of Centers for Advanced Orthopaedic in Rockville and Germantown, Maryland. He provides complete care for athletes of all ages and specializes in shoulder and knee injuries. Dr. Boden offers non-operative treatment modalities for many injuries as well as state of the art arthroscopic and joint replacement techniques for rotator cuff, shoulder instability, meniscal, ACL, and arthritic conditions. He is the team physician for the athletes at Montgomery College and has served on the medical staff for U.S. Soccer and DC United. Dr. Boden is a consultant at the NIH and an adjunct Professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He has performed extensive research with a focus on the epidemiology and etiology of sports injury, specifically ACL ruptures and catastrophic sports injury, with a goal of preventing injuries. In 2021 he was the recipient of the prestigious Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation Clinical Research Award. Dr. Boden is an active member of the American Orthopaedic Society of Sports Medicine where he has served on several committees. He has lectured at numerous international, national and local conferences.
Yvette Rooks MD, FAAFP
Yvette Rooks MD, FAAFP is the Assistant Director of the University Health Center for Sports Medicine at the University of Maryland at College Park and the Head Team Physician (1998-2016 and 2019-present). She served as the Chief Medical Officer of Sports Medicine at the RWJ/Barnabus Healthcare System and CMO for Rutgers University from June 2017- September 2019. Dr. Rooks completed a four-year term on the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports which oversees all of the medical policies involving college athletes. She is the past Chair of AIM-HI, American In Motion-Health Initiatives, a National program sponsored by the American Academy of Family Physicians’. Dr. Rooks is a Past President the of the Maryland Academy of Family Physicians. She is one of two Physicians on the Board of CATS- College Athletic Trainers Association. Dr. Rooks is a Member at Large on the Sports Medical Advisory Board of the National Federation of High School Sports. She served as former past Chair and current member of the Sports Medicine Advisory Board for the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association as well as the Howard County Public Schools Sports Medicine Advisory Committee.
Craig H. Bennett, M.D., FAAOS
Craig H. Bennett, M.D., FAAOS, is the 2018 co-founder and medical director of the LifeBridge Health Sports Medicine Institute in Owings Mills, Maryland. He also serves as the medical director for Loyola University of Maryland. During the previous 15 years, Dr. Bennett was the head orthopaedic surgeon for the University of Maryland Terrapins and the Chief of Orthopaedic Sports Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Dr. Bennett did his undergraduate work at Brown University, his medical training at the University of California-San Francisco and his orthopaedic residency at Emory University. He completed a sports medicine fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh and is a graduate of the Leadership Fellows Pro-gram of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. He is the sports division head of the Rubin Institute for Advanced Orthopaedics, which encompasses a residency program initiated in 2020. He serves as the medical director of the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference and as team physician for DeMatha Catholic and St. Timothy’s high schools.
Jennifer Rheeling
Jennifer Rheeling is a 30-year employee of the District of Columbia Public School system, having served as a certified athletic trainer for the DCPS Department of Athletics Athletic Health Care Services (AHCS) since 1991.
Throughout her professional career, Miss Rheeling has engaged in many endeavors to advance the profession of athletic training. These include a six-year stint as the MAATA representative to the NATA Secondary School Athletic Trainers Committee (SSATC), liaison between the SSATC and the NATA Ethnic Diversity Advisory Committee (EDAC), participation in the NATA’s Secondary School Practice Value Model project and the MAATA District Council and, currently, the NATA State Association Advisory Committee (SAAC) as a Division I representative and liaison to EDAC. Miss Rheeling has served as president of the DC Athletic Trainers’ Association and is the inaugural chair of the DC State Athletic Association’s Sports Medicine Advisory Committee. Also active in the Washington Teachers’ Union she served seven terms as the AHCS’s representative to the WTU, collaborating with her col-leagues to ensure the DCPS athletic training positions set high standards for salary, benefits and work-life balance. Miss Rheeling is a proud 30+ year member of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) and has received many awards for her leadership and advocacy endeavors.
Dr. Steve Horwitz
Dr. Steve Horwitz is a graduate of Cornell University and the National University of Health Sciences. He was selected by the USOC to be the sole chiropractor on the US Olympic Team medical staff for the XXVI Olympiad. He has traveled internationally with USATF and been a sports medicine consultant to several D1 sports programs. He was appointed by the Governor to the Maryland Council on Physical Fitness and became Chairman. He was the Maryland director for the NSCA and was the co-chairman of Care & Prevention of Athletic Injuries program in Montgomery County, Maryland. He is the Founder of TeamSafe®Sports and is a provider of continuing education to health care providers and coaches in the areas of sports injury care, prevention, athletic development, and youth sports concussion management. An avid athlete, Dr. Horwitz competes in bodybuilding, powerlifting, and is two-time champion of the Tactical Strength Challenge Men’s Master’s Division.
Michael Craven
Michael Craven is considered a legend in the field of exercise, weightlifting and improving athletic performance. His broad knowledge of the fitness industry comes in part from having been the owner and trainer of Mike’s Olympic Gym for over 30 years. He has co-developed and appeared on several local television fitness shows including Fitness Facts which was created through his partnership with the Chippenham Sports Medicine Department in Richmond, Virginia.
While he continues to operate his gym, Mike is presently the President and Founder of True Fitness Solutions – a company that he started 15 years ago. The business is dedicated to helping people achieve better health and weight loss through the practical application of exercise science. True Fitness Solutions is a prescriptive fitness program which can be easily implemented into the workplace. It offers employees an assessment of their current fitness status, through RMR and VO2 testing; with a customized physical activity component directed at individualized realistic goals.
Dr. Frank Walters
Dr. Frank Walters is a certified and licensed athletic trainer with over forty years of experience in a diverse range of professional work settings and in several regions of the country. These work settings include secondary schools, college / university and both secondary school and hospital administration.
Dr. Walters received his undergraduate degree from Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, New York, his Masters’ Degree in Athletic Training from Indiana State University, and his PhD at Texas A&M University.
Dr. Walters work experience includes being the first athletic trainer at Pharr San Juan Alamo HS in Pharr, Texas. He worked as a teacher / athletic trainer at Smiley HS in Houston. He also served as a lecturer and head athletic trainer at Prairie View A&M University. During his time at Texas A&M University he served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology. During the 90’s and early 2000’s he worked as the Coordinator of Athletic Health Care Services for the Washington, DC Public Schools. He served as the Director of Sports Medicine for Broward Health in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for over 11 years. Currently, he serves as an ATC Spotter and an ATC Spotter Ambassador for the NFL. He has been a faculty member of the University of Miami Athletic Training Program since August 2019 and he is a Sports Safety Program Educator in the Youth Sports Safety Program for the Hospital for Special Surgery in Palm Beach County, Florida.
Dr. Walters has been actively involved in the profession of athletic training throughout his entire career. He has served on many National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) Committees most notably he served as the chair of the Ethnic Diversity Advisory Committee (EDAC), as a member of the Education Council and as the Chair of the first Education Degree Task Force. He has also served as both a member and Vice-President of the Board Of Certification (BOC) Board of Directors. Dr. Walters is currently serving as a member of the Florida Board of Athletic Training.
Dr. Walters has received numerous awards for his service to the athletic training profession during his career. These awards include the NATA EDAC Bill Chisolm Professional Service Award as well as the Most Distinguished Athletic Trainer. In 2010, Dr. Walters was elected to both the SWATA (Southwest Athletic Trainers’ Association) Hall of Fame and the NATA Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the inaugural District of Columbia Athletic Trainers’ Association (DCATA) Hall of Fame in June 2022 and in June 2023 he was the recipient of the Tim Kerin Award for Excellence from the NATA.