Hall of Fame
Dr. Russell Zelko was appointed Orthopedic Consultant and Orthopedic Surgeon in charge of Sports Medicine at Cornell in 1975. A former football, basketball and track letterman in high school, Dr. Zelko graduated from Cornell in 1962, attended the McGill School of Dentistry for one year, and then spent four years at the Cornell Medical College where he received his M.D. in 1967. At Cornell he succeeded the well-known Dr. Alex Rachun, who served as team physician for 30 years. In addition to his post in athletic medicine, he was an Attending Surgeon at Tompkins Community Hospital (Cayuga Medical Center) and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in Orthopedic Surgery at Cornell Medical College. In addition to serving as orthopedic surgeon to all the Cornell University student-athletes from 1975 until his retirement in January 2007, he covered all home and away football games during that time period, as well as home basketball, home wrestling and home lacrosse games. During the football season, he traveled to away games and paid for his own travel expenses, as well as traveling to many away lacrosse games and wrestling contests on his own. He volunteered countless hours to see injured student-athletes during the evenings and on weekends and was on 24-hour call for the athletic training staff and student-athletes. He was known to come in at all hours to see an athlete and was always willing to transport injured athletes to the hospital in his own car. As an undergraduate, Zelko earned letters in both football and lacrosse.
