The New England Patriots, the Boston medical community and the community of Wellesley have lost a member of their team with the passing of physician Mark Price on Friday, August 16.
Price, a Wellesley resident, served in the U.S. Navy Reserve and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his service in combat operations in Afghanistan. He was also a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital. He died after a 15-month battle with leiomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer.
He was 52.
By all accounts, Price was a modest man and not the type to draw attention to his long, impressive list of academic, professional and social positions, achievements, awards or honors.
“Mark was incredibly gracious, self-deprecating and humble and by far the smartest person I’ve ever met,” said Scott Koehler, who served with Price in Afghanistan. “He never boasted about being a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, having been educated at elite institutes or working with professional sports teams. In fact, I think all we knew for the first few weeks was that he had a wife and three children and was an aspiring ‘Game of Thrones’ fan.”
Finding love, marriage and medicine
Price was born in Stanford, California, and grew up in Florida in a close-knit middle-class family with extremely supportive parents.
“Visiting his siblings over the last year has meant a lot to him,” said Price’s wife, Stephanie.
Price attended Northwestern University from 1990 to 1994 and met his future wife there during his final year of study.
“He studied biomedical engineering and I studied comparative literature,” Stephanie said. “Although we had never met, we had many friends in common.”
She was attracted to him, she said, first “because he was sweet, and then because he made me laugh more than anyone else ever did.”
The couple married two years after they met and moved to Cambridge so he could attend MIT.
“He did his PhD in quantum computing and then got his MD at Harvard Medical School,” Stephanie said. “We originally planned to leave Boston as soon as he graduated, but after just six months we fell in love with Boston. Twenty-eight years later, we’ve never lived anywhere but the Boston area, but never really in Boston – Cambridge, Brookline, Newton, Wellesley.
He loved the camaraderie with his colleagues, be it in the clinic, in the operating room or on the sidelines.
Stephanie Price
He initially chose medicine because he enjoyed the intellectual challenge and then discovered that he enjoyed getting to know patients, hearing their stories and helping them get well, Stephanie said.
Why the doctor worked in sports medicine
After completing his orthopedic residency at the Harvard Combined Orthopedic Residency Program, Price was a fellow in sports medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital under Tom Gill, then chief physician of the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots.
“As a fellow, he helped Dr. Gill take care of the players and built relationships with many members of each team’s training staff,” Stephanie said. “After Mark completed his fellowship, he joined the Department of Sports Medicine at UMass Medical Center, where his duties included overseeing spring training for the Red Sox and Paw Sox.”
That relationship continued after he moved to MGH, with him covering part of spring training and several regular season games each year.
“The team he built was ready for action”: Service in the US Navy Medical Reserve
Price joined the U.S. Navy Medical Reserve in 2008 and was appointed Lieutenant Commander in the captain’s quarters of the USS Constitution in Boston.
In 2012, he was called to active duty and served for eight months in Afghanistan with Special Forces, providing battlefield medical care.
He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his bravery in combat during his service.
According to Koehler, Price was not only incredibly academically intelligent, but also emotionally.
“He had no military background, but he still learned the Navy, Army and Air Force insignia of the four different countries we worked with so he could address the officers and enlisted with those all-important titles,” Koehler said. “He was able to coordinate the special forces and commanders’ missions and explain the situation to them, showing them that the team he had built was ready to deploy and could take casualties. That allowed us to go from being a stationary team to a team that was traveling all over the country to support the war effort.”
He literally dodged bullets as he ran through our tank convoy to bring aid to a civilian.
Scott Koehler
In addition, according to Koehler, Price can talk to Afghan orphans and tell them that everything will be OK and that he will help them walk again.
“He always took the mission seriously, but he never took himself seriously,” Koehler said.
Personally, Koehler said Price was “an extremely funny guy.”
“He sent my family Christmas cards. He let me stay at his house to watch stupid action movies when he wasn’t feeling well because he knew how much we wanted to spend just one more day with him. He was my friend and I miss him.”
There are always platitudes about how much those who have passed on have impacted many people’s lives, Koehler continued, “but Dr. Mark Price was truly someone special and a damn fine sailor. We are all proud to have known him.”
Price considered his military service as a surgeon in Afghanistan to be his greatest professional achievement.
He retired as a captain in the Naval Reserve.
How Dr. Mark Price became the doctor of the Red Sox and Patriots
After returning from Afghanistan in 2013, Price, still with the Boston Red Sox, won a World Series ring in 2018 as part of the medical team.
He was also invited to interview for the position of chief medical officer for the New England Patriots.
Legend has it that during this interview, Price was asked by then-coach Bill Belichick how he would handle an angry call from Belichick complaining about the game status of an injured player.
Price replied, “With all due respect, you being angry with me would not be in the top five worst things that have ever happened to me.”
He got the job.
Price was part of the Patriots’ two Super Bowl victories – in 2017 against the Atlanta Falcons and in 2019 against the Los Angeles Rams. He helped the Patriots reach the Super Bowl in 2018 by examining Tom Brady’s badly injured thumb just days before the AFC Championship game.
The Patriots organization acknowledged Price’s importance to the team in a public statement from owner Robert Kraft.
“We extend our deepest condolences to Dr. Price’s family, friends and colleagues during this difficult time,” Kraft said in a statement. “His legacy will live on through the many lives he touched and the lasting impact of his work.”
Kraft called Price a “valued doctor” who will be greatly missed by the Patriots organization.
“Price became the Patriots’ chief physician and medical director in 2016 and possessed exceptional expertise. His contributions to the health and well-being of our players were invaluable and his commitment to excellence was evident in every aspect of his work.”
legacy
Medical students often asked him how they could one day get his job – whether as a crew doctor, a captain in the Navy or a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, Stephanie said.
“He replied that at every fork in the road, he and I simply made the best decision for him and our family and he ended up where he was meant to be.”
In addition to Stephanie, Price leaves behind his three children Henry, Julia and Sarah as well as his parents and siblings.
“Despite everything he did and all his different roles, the roles of father and husband were his favorite and most valuable,” Stephanie said.
