Men's Lacrosse: Wiedmaier’s return strengthens defense

All of that changed during the fall offseason, when Wiedmaier received some of the most shocking news of his life: After going to see his doctor in the hopes of fixing a nagging knee injury, he was told that he had a torn meniscus, a potentially serious condition that needed to be resolved as quickly as possible.

“I initially met with my doctor, and he said there were two things I could do,” Wiedmaier said. “In most cases, if it’s just a small tear, then they just remove the torn portion [of the tissue] and the recovery is pretty short — just a few weeks at most. The thing, though, is that having your entire meniscus can help you later on in life. So they say that if there’s the possibility of repairing it, then they’ll try to do that, but the recovery process is much longer — many, many months.”

Wiedmaier’s doctors told him that repair was impossible and that the best course of action was to remove the damaged part of the meniscus. At the time, he was comfortable with that decision. His focus was on being healthy and ready for the 2010 season, and he believed that the procedure would help him achieve that goal.

A few days later, as Wiedmaier was in the hospital preparing for surgery, he became highly attuned to the possibility that — for whatever reason — his doctors might attempt to repair his meniscus instead of simply removing the torn portion. It was something he wanted to avoid at all costs.

“I was freaking out because I didn’t want to wake up and hear that they decided to repair it, because that recovery time was crazy,” Wiedmaier said. “I got the doctors to promise that they wouldn’t, though, so I was feeling a bit better when the surgery started and they put me under.”

A few hours later, Wiedmaier woke up, and his world turned upside down.

“The surgery went fine, and I woke up, and I was feeling great, and I thought it was over,” Wiedmaier said. “I was fine until I saw my mom walk into the room and saw her face really distressed. She just looked at me and said, ‘Chad, they had to repair it.’ ”

It was devastating news for an athlete who in his freshman year had risen to the pinnacle of his sport.

“My heart sank when my mom told me what had happened, because I thought my season was over,” Wiedmaier said. “At that point I started freaking out. The doctor tried to explain why they had to do what they had to do. In hindsight, I’m really thankful that I had such a good doctor: If he hadn’t repaired [the meniscus], then I would have barely been able to run in a few years. Still, it was really hard to accept it.”

After finally being released from the hospital, Wiedmaier began his long road to recovery. The first few months were the most difficult. In addition to having to use crutches, Wiedmaier had to wear a straight-leg immobilizer, a kind of leg brace that prevents the affected leg from achieving any motion at all.

“I had the immobilizer on for six weeks,” Wiedmaier said. “I was crutching everywhere for the first month, too, and after that I was just walking with the immobilizer but without crutches. That was pretty annoying.”

Months went by before Wiedmaier was finally able to begin exercising again — and even when that time came, his workouts were light at best.

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“It seemed like a really long time before I was able to get the immobilizer off,” Wiedmaier said. “And when I did, I was allowed to start doing some very basic strengthening things. Nothing too big, but I basically had to teach myself how to walk properly again.”

On March 15, after the team had already won its first four games, Wiedmaier was finally given the green light to begin practicing again. After 12 more days — during which he watched from the sidelines as the Tigers lost 12-11 to No. 2 University of North Carolina and defeated Penn 11-10 — Wiedmaier at last stepped on the field in New Haven, Conn., in the Tigers’ game against Yale.

“All defenses in college lacrosse are pretty much the same, with a few tweaks, so it wasn’t too hard to jump back in,” Wiedmaier said. “Honestly, I didn’t even think about it that much because I was just anxious to get back into things.”

Indeed, to all who watched Princeton defeat Yale 7-6, Wiedmaier was generally stellar. He effectively shut down the Bulldogs’ leading scorer, attackman Matt Gibson, preventing him from finding the back of the net during every minute in which Wiedmaier was in the game. In fact, Gibson’s only goal came during the short time in the first quarter when Wiedmaier was out.

As the team prepares to take on No. 3 Syracuse (7-1), it will once again be counting on Wiedmaier to keep things steady on the Tigers’ back line. For his part, Wiedmaier feels up to the challenge.

“The only thing that I was a little worried about before was my stamina,” Wiedmaier said. “In the Yale game, it was just a little lower because I wasn’t practicing as much. Now, after two solid weeks of practice I feel just as normal as I did before, and I’m moving just as fast. I’m ready for Syracuse. We all are.”