“I completely messed it up, I tore my MCL,” McNamara said. “I didn’t know this until my MCL was messed up, but I tore my patellar halfway through the season last year, actually against Michigan State. That’s a whole story in itself.”
In a confounding story, McNamara alleges that Michigan’s medical staff cleared him to play again this year, despite tearing his MCL. He later sought a second opinion from Dr. Neal ElAttrache, an orthopedic surgeon and head team physician for the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers, who “was astonished,” McNamara says.
“My knee was completely open still, and (he) was determining whether to have a repaired MCL or get a cadaver and full reconstruction,” McNamara said.
That’s when McNamara, who remained on the Michigan sideline until early November, decided to hang it up for the season. He went out to southern California to have the procedure, later posting a photo of himself in a wheelchair, and has been out there ever since rehabbing.
