Joe's Sports & Outdoor and Oregon Health & Science University are teaming up to offer school sports physicals at several Portland-area locations on Saturday, June 2.
The goal of the program is to help keep young athletes active and involved in sports, and to ensure they have no medical problems that would put them at risk to play sports.
“Certain musculoskeletal, cardiovascular and other medical conditions can be associated with severe problems and injuries during physical activity,” said James Chesnutt, M.D., medical director of the OHSU Sports Medicine program. “We follow national guidelines, including a health questionnaire, blood pressure measurement and listening to the heart and lungs for screening of student athletes for the most common problems that impact athletes. We want to help them get the evaluation and clearance that they need to stay active and healthy.”
Reese Thedford, marketing manager for Joe's Sports & Outdoor said increasing costs of the pay-to play-program mean more and more students are getting priced out of participating in school athletics.
“At Joe's, we believe it is every student's right to play sports, and we will do anything we can to help all students afford school sports,” Thedford said.
Rick Nuttall, Gresham store manager and program originator, said, “The first year was an experiment with the Beaverton School District and was very successful. We put 55 kids into sports that would not have been able to play due to the cost of a physical, and we raised a few thousand dollars for school athletic programs. The goal is to reach out to as many young athletes as possible, and the OHSU partnership is a step in the right direction.”
The physicals, provided by physicians in the Sports Medicine Program at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine's Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation, will be offered from 8 a.m. to noon at three Joe's Sports & Outdoor store locations: 17799 Lower Boones Ferry Road in Tualatin; 700 N.W. Eastman Parkway, Gresham; and 3485 S.W. Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton. Each physical is $10 and all proceeds benefit the students' high school athletic programs.
