Daniel E. Cooper, MDPresident

Daniel E. Cooper, M.D.

Dr. Cooper is a widely recognized authority in the field of orthopedic sports medicine. He is currently the head team physician for the Dallas Cowboys Football Team and formerly for the Dallas Stars Hockey Team (1993-2011). He has served as a team physician in professional sports for over 30 combined seasons. In addition, Cooper is the exclusive US Consultant to Real Madrid Club Football in Liga BBVA of the Spanish Premier Division. He serves as an independent consultant to numerous collegiate and professional teams, sports agents and their players. Dr. Cooper has published over 70 scientific articles and book chapters, and participated as faculty in over 50 instructional course lectures.

Dr. Cooper is an internationally known expert in the treatment of complex knee ligament injuries involving injury to the anterior cruciate, posterior cruciate and collateral ligaments, and his practice serves as a referral center for difficult and revision cases. Additionally, he is the inventor and co-developer of the new Single Portal Arthroscopy system (Stryker Endoscopy).

Awards & Honors

Dr. Cooper was recently honored to receive the 2013 Jerry “Hawk” Rhea Award, which is presented annually by the National Football League’s Athletic Trainers Society to whom they consider to be the outstanding team physician in the NFL. In addition, he received the Excellence in Research Award from the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine for his post-graduate research related to graft strength for ACL surgery in the knee. Dr. Cooper was named one of the Top 50 Knee Surgeons in America by Becker’s Healthcare Review. He has been elected by his physician peers to D Magazine’s annual edition of “Best Doctors in Dallas” 20 times, and has been listed numerous times by America’s Best Doctors and Texas Super Doctors.

As a leading contributor and Scientific Advisory Board member to the Multicenter ACL Revision Study (MARS), Dr. Cooper was part of the research team that won the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine’s prestigious 2014 O’Donoghue Award for the best clinical research paper in sports medicine. Dr. Cooper’s paper, ACL Reconstruction in the NFL: A 25 Year Experience, received the Art Rettig Award for most outstanding paper presented at the 2016 NFL Physicians’ Society annual meeting.

Research & Publications

Dr. Cooper is currently a lead investigator and Scientific Advisory Board Member for the award winning and NIH funded Multicenter ACL Revision Study (MARS), researching outcomes in over 1200 ACL revision surgeries. He has developed and published new techniques for PCL reconstruction in the knee, and he is the lead investigator in published technical and clinical studies related to single portal arthroscopy.

Dr. Cooper is an editorial reviewer for the American Journal of Sports Medicine, the Journal of Arthroscopic Surgery and the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. He has published over 70 scientific articles and book chapters as well as the textbook, Review of Sports Medicine and Arthroscopy in two editions.

Personal Profile

A Dallas native, son of a physician and graduate of Highland Park High School, Dr. Cooper attended the University of Tennessee on full athletic scholarship, where he was a Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate in 3 years, the captain of their top ten nationally ranked tennis team, holder of two Southeastern Conference tennis titles, and twice the recipient of the President’s Citation for Extraordinary Academic Achievement. He received an early acceptance to UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, where he was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha honor medical society. He was awarded the prestigious Orthopedic Sports Medicine Fellowship at Cornell University’s Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, which has repeatedly been named the #1 Orthopedic Hospital in the country by US News. While there he trained on both the Sports Medicine Knee and Shoulder Services under the direction of Russell F. Warren, MD, the longtime team doctor for the New York Giants and renowned pioneer of modern sports medicine research and surgical techniques.

Personal Commitments

Dr. Cooper is a founder and the President of the Carrell Care Community Partners, a nonprofit charity whose mission is to support research, education, charitable care and patient advocacy in the field of musculoskeletal medicine.

Educational Background

Undergraduate

University of Tennessee; Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa

Medical

The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School; Alpha Omega Alpha

Residency

Orthopedic Surgery -University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio

Fellowship

The Hospital for Special Surgery, Cornell University Medical Center, New York City Specializing in Sports Medicine, Arthroscopic and Reconstructive Surgery of the Knee and Shoulder