The July Alumnus of the Month is Scott McClelland. Scott was a sizable player who mostly played lock during his time at Michigan. He also managed to play front row and loose forward. McClelland played physical, sound rugby while also managing to be that one player always injuring his teammates in practice. Off the field, Scott was a gentle giant who’s loud, bass voice was a welcome addition to team songs.
When did you play?
2002-2007
Any special honors?
Member of Midwest Championship and undefeated team in the fall of 2004.
Favorite memories or teammates?
Winning the Midwest finals Junior year. Also the spring break trip to Thailand in 2005.
What are you doing now?
I live outside of Boston and I’m a computer engineer working at AMD designing microprocessor cores.
Any other interesting stories or info that you can provide?
I was nicknamed Chewy because I’m big and hairy and during one rucking drill I let out a shout as I drove the pile and the name stuck. But I always thought it was funny that people constantly asked me to make the Chewbacca noise even though I’m terrible at doing it. Someone (maybe Kyle Geralds?) was really good at it though so they kept asking and it never went away.
– I’m pretty sure there was a video made of Keith Bowen’s and my try celebration run during my freshman year so that’s probably on the internet somewhere.
– I was once taken off the field on a back board after taking a shoulder to the neck vs OSU. I felt fine but told the trainer my neck cracked so they called an ambulance and took me to U of M hospital to get checked out. I thought it was funny that they had to call the ambulance to take me to the hosiptal that was in sight lying on my back not moving my neck on Mitchell field.
