Out of Many, One: A History of the American College of Sports Medicine (review)

Out of Many, One is a very comprehensive chronicle of the history of the American College of Sports Medicine, from its earliest beginnings as the American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation, an organization made up primarily of physical education specialists, to its present existence as a multidisciplinary organization consisting of the allied health fields as well as the medical components. This text provides the reader with an insight into the evolution of the sports medicine movement in the United States, and with an overview of the contrast between the development of sports medicine on the European continent and in the United States.

This is not the kind of reference book that one would turn to when researching a particular injury or its management, but rather when seeking a detailed description of the individuals, institutions, and organizations who have played a significant role in the development of the American College of Sports Medicine. The author goes into infinite detail in his description of the material covered in each of the College’s meetings and continuing-education courses. This is an excellent resource in which one can find position statements and their influence on rule changes in many of the sports so as to prevent injury. There is an accurate accounting of expenditures for most of the College’s outreach programs, as well as an accounting of grants from major commercial corporations. The appendix lists all of the founding members, charter members, past officers, Boards of Trustees, annual meetings with accompanying statistics, award recipients, periodical publications, special lecturers, and other minutiae. It also contains the organization’s Constitution and By-laws.

Interestingly, despite the increased exposure of the professional sports team physicians in this country in the early 1970s, and the subsequent formation of individual sports league physician groups—the National Football League Team Physicians, the Association of Major League Baseball Physicians, the National Basketball Association and National Hockey League Team Physician groups—there are no references in this book to any of these groups. Their members helped to popularize many of the technological advances in the field of sports medicine because of their care of high-profile athletes, whereas the American College of Sports Medicine worked primarily at the grassroots level in the realm of education and injury prevention.