Where Are They Now? Tami Rogers

July 30, 2007

NORMAN, Okla. -- The Mission Statement of the University of Oklahoma Athletics Department includes the well known credo, "Inspiring champions today and preparing leaders for tomorrow."

When your team racks up 21 straight semesters with a cumulative team GPA of 3.0 or better, you are certainly preparing your student athletes for life away from the court.

That has been the case under OU women's basketball head coach Sherri Coale during her 11-year tenure. The former English teacher, with continual assistance from OU's award winning academic services department, has always emphasized the books on the same level as the basketballs.

"One of my favorite parts of gameday is seeing our former players," said Coale. "I love to share our success with them and feel their excitement for our program.

"But that pales in comparison to the pride I have in their personal successes. We have so many former players who are doing tremendous things in the community and too many times their public story ends on the sports page when they leave the basketball arena. These ladies should be celebrated for the first class ambassadors of this institution and state that they have become."

With those success stories in mind, SoonerSports.com is beginning a summer feature series that will bring to light the professional ventures of several former Sooner stars:

The tie that former players have to the Oklahoma program was no more evident than when the Sooners traveled to Austin, Texas for the opening rounds of the 2007 NCAA Tournament.

The team had a special visitor at its closed practice, in the person of former Sooner star Tami Rogers.

Rogers played from 1986-90 and has no personal ties to the current coaching staff or team, but she is still drawn to the program and has since been named as a Foundation Player on one of the program's ground-breaking endowments.

Rogers is 11th in career points in the Sooner record books with a total of 1,353. The Mont Belvieu, Texas native averaged double figures as a sophomore, junior and senior. Her average of 19.7 points in her final year is the fourth best mark in school history.

After graduating with a zoology degree, Rogers moved south to attend medical school in San Antonio. After four years in medical school, she came back to the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center to begin a three-year residency in internal medicine. Her fourth year of residency was spent serving as chief resident.

"As chief resident I served as a teacher and mentor," said Rogers. "I was also responsible for overseeing the residents and scheduling."

When she completed her residency, the Texas native relocated to Tuba City, Arizona where she worked in the hospital on a Navajo reservation. While there she served as the Director of the Diabetes program. During her two and one-half years in Tuba City Rogers began researching and developing a metabolic program.

"It is a metabolic program that teaches healthy eating and living," said Rogers.

Medicine was not Rogers only focus in Tuba City. For two years she also served as the varsity basketball coach for the Tuba City high school girls. She led Tuba City to two Arizona state championships.

"It was a really fun experience," said Rogers. "Basketball was and still is a big part of that community."

Rogers would eventually move back to San Antonio where she joined an internal medicine group and worked for two years before realizing that her passion was in bariatrics. Bariatrics is the branch of medicine that deals with the causes, prevention, and treatment of obesity.

She had found her niche in the medical world and decided to get certified in bariatrics so that she could open the Dr. Rogers Metabolic and Wellness Center in San Antonio.

After two years, Rogers merged her clinic with the Weight Wise program and became the medical director of Weight Wise (http://www.weightwise.com/). Weight Wise has three clinics, including one in Oklahoma City.

"We are hopefully going to expand further in the near future," said Rogers.

Rogers, who is still serving as medical director, is based in San Antonio, but shares time between all three clinics.

Other Where Are They Now Features...
WATN-Caton Hill
WATN-Dionnah Jackson
WATN-Tami Rogers
WATN-Desiree Taylor
WATN-Shannon Selmon
WATN-Stephanie Simon
WATN-Elissa Walker-Campbell
WATN-Phylesha Whaley
WATN-Michele Workman

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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