Arthur James Roberts, Jr. (born November 4, 1942) is an American retired

cardiac surgeon Cardiac surgery, or cardiovascular surgery, is surgery on the heart or great vessels performed by cardiac surgeons. It is often used to treat complications of ischemic heart disease (for example, with coronary artery bypass grafting); to corr ...

and former collegiate and

professional football In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larg ...

player. First attracting the attention of recruiters, in his youth he was quarterback for an undefeated

Holyoke High School Holyoke High School is a public high school in western Massachusetts, United States that serves the City of Holyoke. Since 2015, the school, along with the district, has been in state receivership and through a series of changes in practices, such ...

football team and described by ''Sports Illustrated'' as the most widely courted high school football player in New England at that time. He went on to play at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. He was drafted in the seventh round of the 1965 American Football League (AFL) draft by the New York Jets. In 1967, he was traded to the AFL

Miami Dolphins The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member team of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team p ...

, playing only one game with the team, in the final minutes of a 41–0 loss. Roberts subsequently became a cardiac surgeon after graduating from

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Case Western Reserve School of Medicine (CWRU SOM, CaseMed) is the medical school of Case Western Reserve University, a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. It is the largest biomedical research center in Ohio. History On November ...

. He performed over 4,000 open-heart operations before retiring. He founded the New Jersey-based Living Heart Foundation in 2001.

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* 1942 births Living people American cardiac surgeons American football quarterbacks American Football League players Columbia Lions football players Columbia University alumni Miami Dolphins players Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball) Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine alumni Sportspeople from Holyoke, Massachusetts Physicians from Massachusetts {{Quarterback-1940s-stub

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