Marshall University Athletics
Marshall Athletics Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 1995
One of the most beloved figures in the history of Marshall University, Dr. Jose Ricard was also one of the most accomplished. A graduate of the University of Havana Medical School, Ricard served as the Director of Sports Medicine for the Cuban Olympic Team and was made – not by his choice – one of Fidel Castro’s personal physicians before fleeing the dictator and communism for the United States in 1963. Ricard slipped away from an airport in Mexico while on a business trip and made his way to the border, eventually finding a shallow place in the Rio Grande River where he could cross into Texas because he could not swim. "Nobody told me about all the poisonous snakes in the shallow part or I might have been too scared to walk through it," he said.
Ricard eventually moved to Huntington and set up a family medical practice, where he became one of the driving forces behind the founding of the Marshall University School of Medicine. He was the team physician for Marshall Athletics from 1981 until late in his life when he was named Team Physician Emeritus, a role in which he served until his death in 2008. He served as President of the West Virginia Academy of Family Physicians and was recognized as the West Virginia Doctor of the Year in 1994.
Ricard was co-chairman of the Marshall School of Medicine Sports Medicine Department and served as an associate professor in the program. He received a Lifetime Recognition Award from the Big Green Scholarship Foundation for his generosity to the program. He was named an honorary alumnus of Marshall University in 1986, inducted into the Marshall University Sports Medicine Hall of Fame in 2001 and enshrined on the Huntington Wall of Fame in 2003. Ricard was inducted into the Marshall Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995.
