Day 36: George Ballou

A team doctor for the Cincinnati Reds and Bengal was a Maysville native.

According to local historian Ron Bailey, Dr. George Ballou was born in Maysville on Dec. 19, 1922 yo George Ballou Sr. and Ethel Ballou.

“They were prominent members of Maysville’s society,” Bailey said. “Ballou who gained upmost respect of the professional athletes of the Cincinnati Reds and Bengals as he was the team doctor for the Reds for 40 years and the Bengals for 20 years.”

Bailey said Ballou graduated from the University of Louisville Medical School and then moved to Cincinnati.

Afterward, he married Lois Shank, whose father was a team doctor for the Cincinnati Reds.

Beginning in 1947, Ballou was a general surgeon in private practice.

“Dr. Reed Shank retired as the team physician of the Reds in 1952 and then the Maysville native, De. Ballou took over the reins as the team doctor for the Reds. His tenure with the Reds spanned the years of the Big Red Machine and the 1975 and 76 World Championships,” Bailey said.

When the Cincinnati Bengals was formed in 1968, the owner and coach, Paul Brown, chose Ballou as the team doctor,” according to Bailey.

“One tidbit about how much Paul Brown respected Dr. Ballou’s opinion came in 1980 and the decision to draft one of the greatest Bengal of all time, Anthony Munoz. Though Munoz struggled with knee injuries throughout his college career at the University of Southern California, the Bengals decided he was the player they wanted with the third overall selection in the 1980 draft, months before they would make their pick,” Bailey said.

According to Bailey, Brown later said he wanted Ballou to make the final decision on Munoz’s knee. Ballou declared that Munoz was fit for pro football. This was a decision that contradicted many of the counterparts on other NFL teams.

Ballou was also later the founder and president of the Professional Baseball Physicians Society and Professional Football Physicians.

Ballou passed away in Cincinnati in 1990. He was 68 years old.