Dr. Clanton Leaving Houston Sports Teams

DR. Tom Clanton, a team physician for the Houston Rockets, Houston Texans, and Rice University, is leaving his practice in July and will join the Steadman-Hawkins Clinic in Vail, Colorado. Clanton is taking over the sports medicine foot and ankle section at Steadman-Hawkins.

"It's been a sea of emotion," Clanton said in an interview with FOX 26 Sports Thursday. "I've been considering an offer from Steadman-Hawkins for two years."

Clanton points out his decision is as much about family as it is about business. He has two daughters who live in the Vail, Colorado area.

"I've had great associations with the other team physicians that I have worked with," Clanton said. "We have an incredible medical community that makes it hard to leave, but the family situation that I am going to as well as the chance to work in a world class medical clinic is something that I can't pass up."

Clanton has been the team physician for Rice since 1982. He has been one of the Texans' doctors since their inception in 2002 and he has worked with the Rockets for five years.

"(Rockets Vice-President of Basketball Operations and trainer) Keith Jones and I talked about me maintaining a relationship with the Rockets," Clanton said. "I plan to continue as a consultant with them as long as they want me."

And Clanton believes he is leaving Rice in good shape.

"I played football at Rice and I have always enjoyed my association with Rice as their team physician," Clanton said. "I'm leaving that situation in good hands with Dr. Leland Winston who also played football at Rice.

"My wife and I look forward to babysitting the grandchildren, teaching them to flyfish, and looking at the mountains."

Clanton is currently the chief of orthopedic Services at Memorial Hermann Hospital. He is also the co-medical director of The Sports Medicine Institute at Memorial Hermann along with Dr. Walter Lowe and Dr. Mark Addickes. This is the institute formerly named after Roger Clemens.

Clanton also serves as the interim-chair of the department of orthopedic surgery at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston.

He was the chairman of that department for nine years before stepping down to take on the dutites associated with the The Sports Medicine Institute. He was asked again in December to head UT's medical school on an interim-basis.