The best medicine: Dr. Kruse spending career in service to all Rockets

Chaos and change are normal in college athletics, and things are no different at the University of Toledo.

Coaches come and go, players arrive and conquer, and last season’s champions don’t always get a second crack at the trophy.

In a 33-year career as a team doctor at Toledo, Dr. Roger Kruse has seen a lot of this change while also remaining a reassuring constant in the lives of Rockets’ athletes.

“It’s been a great ride,” Kruse said. “Just helping the kids, when they come back and look you up or say ‘Hi,’ it’s just neat.

“It’s kind of like you have your own little family of all the college athletes that have gone through.”

An athlete himself in college, Kruse said he has always had a passion for sports and he knew he wanted to make a career out of this passion.

After finishing his family practice residency, Kruse began working for UT as a team doctor in 1981, eventually forming his own fellowship.

“They didn’t have anybody in general practice covering the teams,” he said. “It was from there that we started.”

Kruse has also taken his expertise global as a drug-crew chief for the U.S. Olympic Committee. As part of this committee, he has attended the 1994, 1998 and 2002 Winter Olympics, as well as the 1996 Summer Olympics.

He served as head physician for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

These are all impressive achievements, but for Kruse it’s been all about the kids he worked with over the years.

“[There have been] a lot of great athletes we have taken care of,” he said. “A lot of friends that have remained friends. ‘It’s been fun’ is the best way to put it.”

Kruse’s emphasis on the well-being of student athletes, as well as their complete rehabilitation, has been a key principle during his tenure at UT.

“As the head football coach it’s great to have somebody with [such] medical expertise,” said UT head football coach Matt Campbell. “You have to appreciate that he always puts his kids and your kids in the best position.

“That’s probably the most important thing you can ask out of a physician is that they’re going to try to do what’s best for their players.”

Campbell didn’t have to reach back far to cite an example, pointing out sophomore running back Kareem Hunt’s recent leg injury and the road to recovery he is traveling.

“[Kareem’s] really had a chance to understand just how important Dr. Kruse is to this team,” Campbell said. “[Kruse has] put a great plan together to bring Kareem back at 100 percent.”

Along with Kruse’s tenure as a UT team doctor — 25 years of it spent as head physician — he will now be adding a spot on the Committee of Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports (CSMAS) to his resumé.

“It’s great for me, it’s great for the university and it’s great for the Mid-American Conference,” Kruse said of his new position. “It’s really great; there are only three positions in the United States.”

The committee, one of the NCAA’s most significant, exists to provide leadership and expertise in supporting all aspects of student-athlete safety.

Kruse didn’t initially seek the committee spot but was nominated by the MAC, an invitation that is hard to decline.

“They called me and asked if I was interested in doing it and I said I would look at it and, you know, this is the most influential medical committee in the NCAA,” he said.

You would be hard-pressed to find anyone familiar with Kruse.

“It’s huge when you get national recognition like that,” Campbell said. “Especially when it comes from not only our athletic department, but certainly somebody like Dr. Kruse who has had a profound effect on all University of Toledo athletics.

“To have one of our own [with that recognition] says a lot about our university and certainly gives us another key part of the puzzle.”

Although Kruse enjoys working with each and every student athlete on campus, some of his finest memories come from helping his most gifted athletes in their biggest moments.

His favorite memory is of a football player who, it’s safe to say, is well-known in these parts.

“Bruce Gradkowski in the championship game of the MAC conference in 2004, when he dislocated his shoulder and broke a hand,” Kruse recalled. “He was able to finish, throw three touchdown passes and be the MVP.

“That was probably the most memorable moment [for me].”

Kruse’s passion for the students and for sports medicine will be something that aids him in his new NCAA committee spot, the latest chapter in his adventurous career at Toledo.

“It’s been a great ride,” Kruse said.

It’s certainly not over yet.