Jack Beare

My name is Jack Beare. I am a senior on the Notre Dame Lacrosse team. My senior year of high school I completely tore my PCL while playing lacrosse. The PCL lies just under the ACL and provides support for the femur and tibia bones so that they do not shift around during intensive cutting and running. After tearing my PCL, I was told that I would not need surgery but would rather have to strengthen my quad and hamstring in order to compensate for my lack of a PCL. Sophomore year I got my first surgery done in order to replace all of the damaged cartilage and bone fractures in my knee that were caused by my shifting tibia and femur. I was unable to walk for 6 weeks and relied heavily on my mom the first week and half where I could barely leave my own bed. After working so hard to return to the field after my first surgery, I began practicing with the team again my Junior year. I had aspirations of getting playing time until the pain started coming back. After 2 months of dealing with the pain, it got to a point where it felt like I hadn’t gotten my first surgery. After weeks of MRI’s and meeting with doctors, I was finally told that I had to stop playing lacrosse and begin looking into two major surgeries that would fix both my PCL and destroyed cartilage so that I could live a normal active life. I now have a cadaver PCL and cartilage implants in my knee. The post op struggles where quite difficult as I was non-weightbearing again and I had the most severe pain I’ve felt the first few days after surgery. When I reflect back upon my surgeries I am extremely proud of myself because my struggles made me a stronger and more positive man. My relationships with my friends and family became much stronger after my surgeries because I realized just how many people truly care about me and my well-being. No longer being able to play lacrosse was a very difficult realization as I had worked my entire life to play lacrosse at a top tier division 1 program. I could not walk away from lacrosse completely so now I help out as a student-coach for the team.