Football: Team doctor must declare allegiance

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Dr. Richard Ferkel, the team doctor for Westlake Village Oaks Christian and North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake, has a problem on Friday. The two schools are playing each other in a Northwest Division quarterfinal playoff game, so who’s Ferkel going to be rooting for?

‘He’ll be rooting for Harvard-Westlake because they send him more business,’ Oaks Christian Coach Bill Redell said.

Ferkel has been taking care of Redell-coached teams for 25 years. But his son, Eric, played football for Harvard-Westlake, graduating in 1998, and has become a doctor himself.

The two Ferkels are expected to be on the sideline helping both teams. That’s what doctors do.

-- Eric Sondheimer