Doctor to champions: Joe Congeni caps long run as pioneer in pediatric sports medicine

From consulting young athletes at Akron Children's Hospital's main campus gym to providing care at high school sports games to researching concussions, Dr. Joe Congeni has juggled multiple responsibilities and initiatives in his nearly 40-year career in sports medicine.

Congeni retired from Akron Children's on Aug. 1, signaling a new chapter for him and for the sports medicine department for which he served as the first director.

In 1988, Akron Children's launched the first pediatric sports medicine department in the country, and Congeni had to prove the concept.

"There were four of us — one trainer, one physical therapist, one secretary and myself — and they gave us a year to try to be successful and work with some of the kids' programs," Congeni recalls. "And in a place like Northeast Ohio where sports is important and … where Akron Children's is so well-known and so world-class in its care, we very quickly were busy."

Over 36 years, Congeni grew the hospital system's sports medicine department to include 10 physicians in Akron and Boardman, physical therapists, a sports psychologist and a sports nutritionist. His department placed athletic trainers in 38 area schools — mostly high schools but some middle schools — and at the University of Akron, where Akron Children's has a sports health facility. The hospital system's sports medicine department and orthopedists also work closely together.

"I was incredibly blessed to get good people on our team," Congeni said.

Over the years, Congeni also held roles as team physician for Archbishop Hoban High School and as an associate team physician for the University of Akron.

The athletes who Congeni worked with came from a gamut of sports, from football and baseball to dancing, gymnastics and bowling.

In 2024, Congeni took on a role as physician liaison with the Akron Children's Foundation, handing the reins of sports medicine director over to Dr. Derrick Eddy.

Of his role with the foundation, Congeni said, "The big thing for me has been heightening the awareness of the Akron Children's Hospital because we really are a world-class facility, and the foundation team is really good at doing that."

In retirement, Congeni will be emeritus director of sports medicine. He plans to continue with various projects: joining the Ray Horner Morning Show on WAKR on Wednesdays to discuss sports medicine topics, serving on the committee of an Akron Children's sports medicine conference and lecturing fellows in the sports medicine fellowship that he founded in 1990 and which has so far graduated 46 fellows.

Dr. Joe Congeni on how family influenced his career

Congeni grew up in the Cleveland area as a sports enthusiast and attended Solon High School, where he played point guard on the basketball team. The youngest of four siblings, he took career inspiration and guidance from his siblings, who established careers in the fields of infectious disease, dentistry and the law.

Congeni's older brother, Dr. Blaise Congeni, retired in 2020 as Akron Children's director of pediatric infectious disease.

Blaise Congeni was working at Akron Children's by the time his younger brother graduated from Notre Dame University in 1980, and Joe Congeni decided to move back to Northeast Ohio to begin graduate school at Northeast Ohio Medical University in Rootstown.

The younger Congeni recalls of his older brother, "He's the one that also really convinced me, 'Hey, we love Northeast Ohio.' He said this is a place, the Children's Hospital, because of its world-class care, that we'd be able to reach our goals medically but also have a great place to raise a family. And he was exactly right."

Congeni's Akron Children's team embraced changes in sports medicine

Congeni said he's seen quite a few developments in sports medicine over the years, including anti-gravity treadmills, smaller automated external defibrillators and a new surgery for baseball pitchers who tear their ulnar collateral ligament.

The treadmills, at two of Akron Children's locations, allow patients to run "with zero stress in their stress fractures," he said.

The surgery for pitchers with torn UCLs involves surgical tape and requires multiple months' less recovery time than the popular Tommy John surgery, Congeni said.

Addressing the defibrillators, he said, "The new AED is about as big as a pocketbook."

"One of the reasons why the foundation and philanthropy that I've been doing the last two years is so important, is we have to raise funds for certain things we can get," Congeni said. "We helped get funds for, for instance, the anti-gravity treadmill. Some of those funds came through philanthropy."

Congeni on common and serious injuries among patients

Children and adolescents experience different injuries than adults, Congeni said. He explained that the most common sports injuries for children relate to overuse and put stress on their growth plates made of cartilage.

Congeni explained the joy that children have and their eagerness to get back to play after they've been patched up.

"They're bounding around, jumping here in four weeks and ready to play their sport and wanting to give us a hug and a picture with an autograph on it because they're going to be the greatest gymnast and they're going to be in the next Olympics and all that kind of stuff," Congeni said.

Congeni said he thinks about eight to 10 of his patients did become Olympians, and at least 14 joined the NFL, Akron Children's reported in a story announcing his retirement.

Only about 15% of pediatric sports injuries require surgery, Congeni said. But when they do, he added, that's when the orthopedists get to work.

"For instance, in the sport of football, we can't get away from squatting. Everybody squats," he said. "You've got a senior who's 260 pounds and whose body is pretty mature; they're ready to be on the squat rack and maybe even with some pretty decent weight."

But eighth graders shouldn't be squatting with heavy weights, Congeni said.

"That's where all my stress fractures of the back came from, is the eighth grader who's on the squat rack, the eighth grader who's playing too many games," he said.

Younger athletes getting into squatting can start lifting just the bar with no weight, Congeni said.

When he attended games for work, Congeni said he paid close attention to the "three Hs" that can cause death on a field: "heat, heart and head."

"Those get me moving," he said. "Those get me out there in a hurry."

But it was usually the trainers who really got to know the athletes and worked with them more during games, Congeni said, adding that he was glad to have them as constant resources.

Congeni became known for research into concussions

Congeni's career has also included research into concussions and establishing protocols for dealing with them.

"Concussion is one of the hardest things to diagnose, to treat — a very, very difficult area," he said.

With concussions, Congeni said one of the most important things that he and colleagues in the medical field have decided is that no athlete should return to a contact sports game after they've experienced a concussion.

At games where athletes became concussed, Congeni said injured players would ask for something to cover their ears because of loud noises worsening their headaches. And they would ask for a cool towel to be placed over their heads.

"So, we dipped the towel in ice and put it on and they'd say, 'Wow, that is so much better.' We'd put the towel all the way over their head and everything," he said. "And I'm like, 'Hey, we've been icing these kids for a long time. Let's try to take a look at it.'"

So, Congeni and colleagues at Akron Children's researched a cooling cap to provide relief to athlete's heads and necks during concussions. They also helped design the cap with the Cleveland firm Nottingham Spirk, he said.

Nottingham Spirk referred to Congeni as a concussion specialist on its website. Akron Children's story about his retirement said concussion is "perhaps the topic he has most closely been identified with."

Congeni ready to focus on family

Just as he shared his gratefulness to his famly for helping him in his career, he said he looks forward to spending more time with them in retirement.

"What I try to teach my teammates here, too, is also having a good life balance, and from the standpoint of my family, (that) means a lot to me," he said.

Congeni has six children — all now grown — and 10 grandchildren with an 11th on the way.

As he shared his enthusiasm about seeing his grandkids more often, his eyes lit up and his smile widened.

Patrick Williams covers growth and development for the Akron Beacon Journal. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or on X @pwilliamsOH. Sign up for the Beacon Journal's business and consumer newsletter, "What's The Deal?"

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Dr. Joe Congeni, Akron pioneer in pediatric sports medicine, retires