Bury my heart at Dan Ward-Smith's Wounded Knee

Dan Ward-Smith
By Ian Todd
May 31 2007

In a venture jointly funded by Bristol Rugby and the Rugby Football Union, Dan Ward-Smith will spend four weeks in the United States with renowned knee specialist Bill Knowles of iSPORT at the Vermont Orthopaedic Clinic in Killington Mountain Ski Resort.

But who is Bill Knowles?

Well, for the past 16 years Bill Knowles has been working with elite level athletes from around the world. He is a rehabilitation specialist who has helped professional and Olympic level athletes recover from season ending and career threatening injuries. His energy and enthusiasm keeps every training session educational and fresh, while his experience allows a creative approach to address any injury situation. Bill's rehab philosophy allows each athlete the opportunity to express their inherent athletic ability quickly following injury or surgery. This mean the "down time" is minimal and the athlete stays very motivated.

Bill was educated at Cortland State College in New York, and then began his career at the Burke Mountain Academy a world renowned sports academy for alpine ski racing. He was the head athletic trainer and took care of countless knee injuries and developed skills that attracted world-class ski racers from Europe and North America. In his quest to reduce the injury rate, Bill took over the strength and conditioning program and dramatically reduced the season ending injury rate through a properly designed injury prevention and performance enhancement program. Athletes were physiologically tested and monitored, in-season programs were adjusted, and young athletes stayed healthy.

Recently professional rugby players from the English national team have come to work with Bill and then been selected for the British & Irish Lions.
As a former collegiate soccer player, competitive ski racer, and coach, Bill delivers his training programs in a way an athlete understands and respects.

The Vermont Orthopaedic Clinic was formed in October 1996. It is a union of three separate entities who, in their own realm, are leaders in the field of orthopaedics, sports medicine, and acute and emergency treatment of sports injury and rehabilitation. The clinic's medical team includes team physicians for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Teams and formerly the U.S. Olympic Sailing Team, the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Milwaukee Rampage professional soccer team.

All this for Dan's knee.