College of Medicine Alumni Keeping Cleveland Browns Safe and Healthy

Tad Seifert, M.D., left, and Sean Cupp, M.D., 2000 graduates of the OU College of Medicine, provide medical coverage to the Cleveland Browns.

Former OU Sooners football quarterback Baker Mayfield has made his mark in the National Football League since joining the Cleveland Browns in 2018. But he’s not the only Oklahoma influence on the team. OU College of Medicine graduates Sean Cupp, M.D., and Tad Seifert, M.D., keep the team healthy and safe as lead medical physician and neurotrauma consultant, respectively.

Cupp has served as the Browns’ lead medical physician since 2014, and he is a sports medicine specialist for University Hospitals, Cleveland Medical Center, where he also serves as co-director of the UH Sports Medicine Institute. He is an assistant professor in the Division of Sports Medicine, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from the OU College of Medicine in 2000, followed by his residency in family medicine at the University of Alabama Birmingham-Huntsville. He then returned home for his primary care sports medicine fellowship at the OU College of Medicine.

Seifert is one of the NFL’s unaffiliated neurotrauma consultants and is assigned to the Cleveland Browns for game-day coverage, acting as an impartial, independent evaluator for concussions. He has served in this capacity in the NFL since 2016 and has been assigned to the Browns since 2018. Seifert is the director of Norton Healthcare’s Sports Neurology Program in Louisville, Kentucky, and is a clinical faculty member with the University of Louisville’s Department of Sports Medicine. Seifert also graduated from the OU College of Medicine in 2000. He then completed his intern year at the University of Louisville, followed by his residency in neurology at the University of Texas and a fellowship in headache and facial pain at the Houston Headache Clinic.

Cupp and Seifert quickly formed a friendship during medical school because of their love of sports, especially Sooner football. They also realized that they had competed against each other at high school track meets – Cupp as a runner and pole vaulter in Watonga and Seifert as a mid-distance runner from Enid.

“Getting to see Tad on five or six Sundays each fall during Cleveland Browns games is great,” Cupp said. “We get tostand together the entire game and catch up with each other’s families, discuss Sooner football and try to keep up to date with mutual friends from our northwestern Oklahoma roots.”

Cupp said it has also been enjoyable watching the turnaround for the Cleveland Browns with Mayfield as quarterback. Last year, Mayfield led the Browns to their first 11-win season since 1994, their first playoff appearance since 2002, and their first playoff victory since 1994.

“Despite 2020 being extra challenging with COVID-19 and the day- to-day medical management that it brought to the team and my workday, it was very enjoyable to see the Browns finally have success after years of losing, always with the hope of rebuilding,” Cupp said. Cupp has a thriving nonsurgical sports medicine and orthopedic practice, caring for athletes of all ages and specializing in joint preservation. He considers himself a clinician, he said, and constantly draws on the skills he learned at OU, both for his clinical practice patients and in his work caring for the Cleveland Browns.

“One of the best gifts that I received from my time at OU was communication and relationship skills,” he said. “I feel very comfortable talking to any patient about almost any subject and making them feel comfortable sharing their problems with me to create a good working relationship.

“The other gift that I received was the wonderful mentoring relationships that started as a first-year medical student and helped shape me over the course of the next four years, and some still today,” Cupp added. “I entered medical school wanting to be a sports medicine physician and thought the only way would be as an orthopedic surgeon. I met Dr. Jim Barrett in January of my first year of medical school while walking through a residency fair. Jim and I talked for a while and he shared with me his specialty of primary care sports medicine. I thought it was fascinating! At that point in time, I felt that was what I probably wanted to do. He soon became a mentor and helped shape me as a sports medicine physician and build the foundation of my career.”