College Lacrosse Player Forced To Sit Out Because His Head Is Too Big

Meet Alex Chu, 19-year-old freshman at Massachusetts’s Wheaton College, and would-be lacrosse player. Chu is at Wheaton to play goalie, but unfortunately, he can’t play. It’s because, well, his head is too big.

Chu will not be able to take the field with the Lyons (the Y is intentional) next month because his head will apparently not fit into any NCAA-approved helmets. “Lacrosse is kind of my whole life. I can’t remember ever going this long without playing,” Chu told the . When he was a star high-school goalie, Chu wore the Frankenstein-ed corpses of two helmets taped together, but the NCAA will not let him play for Wheaton unless he gets a legit helmet that can house his head.

Alison Chu, Alex’s mother, wrote in an e-mail that “nobody can believe the nightmare my son is caught in. All he wants is to play lacrosse. He’s got the dedication. He’s got the skills. He just needs the helmet.”

The path to getting Chu on the field seems to be persuading one of the two national manufacturers—Warrior or Cascade-Maverik—to modify a helmet or make a larger one somehow. A Cascade-Maverik spokesman declined comment to the Globe, and a Warrior rep told the paper it would cost five figures to modify its factory equipment.

However, Chu might apparently be in luck, as Warrior later told CBS Boston that they’ll send him a new helmet, one that will hopefully be able to fit over his head. Making the news because you’ve got a real dome on you can’t be fun, but at least the attention might help get Chu playing again.