Peter Chodoff, 91, anesthesiologist, Temple supporter

Peter Chodoff did not hide his affection for Temple University.

"On my discharge from the U.S. Navy in WWII, I entered Temple as a biology major with the goal of becoming a physician," Dr. Chodoff wrote on a fund-raising page of the university website.

"The education and personal attention I received at Temple changed me from a shy . . . young man . . . into a person who had a distinguished academic medical career."

On Monday, March 21, Dr. Chodoff, 91, of Cherry Hill, an anesthesiologist who helped finance the sports-practice Chodoff Field at 10th and Diamond Streets, died at Cooper University Hospital in Camden.

On his Temple website page, he wrote that a successful sports program "would help attract students, be an important part of college life, and 'serve as the front porch' of what an outsider sees as Temple."

With his gift, he wrote, he established his practice field next to Edberg-Olson Hall, the headquarters for the university football program.

On Tuesday, Temple football coach Matt Rhule, at his regular media conference, summed up the physician's impact.

"Amongst all the great people who have been around to help athletics," probably none was greater than Dr. Chodoff, Rhule said.

"Our field is named after him, but it is so much more than that," the coach said.

"His interaction with the team, traveling on every trip, being a friend, being a person who believed in us - he will be greatly missed."

Harry Donahue, the play-by-play radio announcer for Temple football and basketball games, recalled the physician as a constant presence at Owls football games.

"He was one of the donors allowed to travel to the team's football away games" with players and coaches.

"We would land. He and I would go out to dinner Friday night," Donahue said, and talk Temple football. And on the way back home, Temple football, again.

"In the last 21 years," Donahue said of their time together, "he missed only one football game, home or away," the reason for the absence lost to memory.

Born in Philadelphia, Dr. Chodoff grew up near Seventh and Pine Streets, graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in 1943, earned a bachelor's degree at Temple in 1947, and graduated from what was then Jefferson Medical College in 1951.

Dr. Chodoff spent the 1960s in Atlantic City and the 1970s and 1980s at medical institutions in Maryland, but returned to Jefferson in the late 1980s, his resumé states.

From 1960 to 1963 and from 1964 to 1969, he was director of the anesthesia department at Atlantic City Hospital.

After serving as an assistant professor of anesthesiology at Yale University School of Medicine in 1969-70, he turned to Maryland.

From 1970 to 1977, he was "anesthesiologist-in-chief, Baltimore City Hospitals," his resumé states, and was an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

From 1978 to 1983, he was chief of critical-care anesthesia at the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services and a professor of anesthesia at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

When he returned to Philadelphia in 1986, he became professor of anesthesia at Jefferson Medical College.

And though he retired from medical practice, his son said, he continued into 2016 as a member of the Jefferson admissions committee.

Dr. Chodoff is survived by son Louis, daughter Carole, two grandchildren, and partner Joan Saltzer. His wife, Lois, died in 1993.

A visitation was set from 12:15 p.m. Friday, March 25, at Platt Memorial Chapels, 2001 Berlin Rd., Cherry Hill, before a 1 p.m. funeral there.

Donations may be sent to www.templeclub.com.

Condolences may be offered to the family at www.plattmemorial.com.

wnaedele@phillynews.com

610-313-8134 @WNaedele

Staff writer Marc Narducci contributed to this article.