Pat Kavanagh is one of the biggest legends in college lacrosse history after he led Notre Dame to a national championship with a fully torn hamstring. Now two years later, an athletic trainer has gone extremely viral on TikTok for his detailed, step-by-step instruction on how to build a fake hamstring.
His video racked up more than 45 million views across various social media platforms, and counting!
Let’s start by looking back on 2023. Kavanagh, who eventually won the Heisman Trophy of college lax, broke the Notre Dame program record for points in a single season with 77, set the program record for assists in a single season (for the third time in his career) and scored 25 goals en route to the Fighting Irish’s first national championship. The 5-foot-10 attack etched his name in the history books.
If that was not impressive enough, Pat Kavanagh played the entire national championship game with a completely torn hamstring. It was not attached at all. Like, not even a little bit. Full tear.
Even though a torn hamstring typically forces an athlete to miss time in recovery, Kavanagh was not going to miss the biggest game of his life. He, with help from Notre Dame’s athletic trainer, taped together enough support to play through the pain.
here’s a close-up of the treatment Pat Kavanagh had on his left leg during the National Championship, you can see some bruising pic.twitter.com/ACV6tVokcz
— Kevin Boilard (@KevinBoilard) May 29, 2023
It was pretty gnarly!
Pat Kavanagh shows Pat McAfee the bruise from his hamstring injury 👀😨
— TLN 🥍 (@LacrosseNetwork) May 30, 2023
(via @PatMcAfeeShow) pic.twitter.com/qEX32xebmB
Fast forward to present day. Emmanuel University (Georgia) athletic trainer Jack Muller has more than 35,000 followers on TikTok and went extremely viral over the last 10 days. I don’t know how exactly I ended up on #TrainerTok but I immediately thought about the 2023 lacrosse national title game when Muller’s tutorial on how to make a fake hamstring hit my feed!
There is just one major difference. His tape job is a lot more intensive and a lot more impressive than whatever Notre Dame threw together for Kavanagh two years ago. Take a look:
For Pat Kavanagh to play through a fully torn hamstring is impressive. To do so without Jack Muller’s viral tape job is even more so. Does Emmanuel University have the best athletic trainer in college sports? Some are saying!