Is Your Child a Lax Bro?
Parents: is your child a student at an elite New Jersey or Long Island all-boys prep school? Does your child enjoy "hanging out" and listening to O.A.R.? Is your child named "Trip," or something? If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, your child may be a lax bro.
What is a lax bro? you are probably asking, right now. Not asking: screaming! WHAT IS A LAX BRO you are screaming, at this computer, while clawing at your face. Be quiet for one second and let the Boston Globe explain:
lax bros - short for "lacrosse brothers"
Lacrosse brothers! Who are these brothers of lacrosse? How do they wear their hair? What music do they listen to? What words do they use to denote things they like?
Older lax bros - short for "lacrosse brothers" - tend to offer similarly vague definitions of the phenomenon, but it is easy to spot them. Lax bros display a certain understated confidence that critics call arrogance. They wear their hair long, a look known as "lettuce." They dress in colorful board shorts, flat-brim hats, and bright half-calf socks. They carry lacrosse sticks, or "spoons," on and off the field.
Everything good is "chill," especially chillin', a favored activity that often includes listening to the music of O.A.R., Dispatch, and Dave Mathews.
What is the chillest thing about being a lacrosse brother? Definitely it's wearing the traditional lacrosse brother garb of a t-shirt with a lacrosse-related saying on it, such as, for example, "laxbro," "#laxlife," or "Entering Laxachusetts," which is now the official name of the former Commonwealth of Massachusetts ever since one of the roving lacrosse brother militias broke into the Massachusetts State House and shouted rude things at Deval Patrick until he agreed to shotgun a beer.
Here's another chill thing about being a lacrosse brother: spending like one zillion dollars on all of the equipment. "You have to have a lot of the stuff, wear it a lot of the time," Beau Keough, 9, tells the Globe. The names of his brothers (biological, not lacrosse): Zander and Cameron. "Lacrosse is cool," Beau adds.
Many lacrosse players are "gear heads" - they collect a variety of sticks, using some for games and others for hanging out with their lax bro buddies.
There are lacrosse players who do not have have to brush the "lettuce" out of their "chill" eyes when they play with their "spoons." There are lacrosse players who even play lacrosse at public schools! And lacrosse players who are not particularly rich. There is a feeling among fans of the game lacrosse that "the identity exudes a preppie/frat-boy image that glorifies elitism and wealth, and values flash over hard work."
Perhaps those people do not understand lacrosse brotherhood. What does it mean to be a lacrosse brother? The Globe asks Chris MacKay, 21, who is "taking a break from sports and studies at Hobart College in New York." A lacrosse brother "plays a lot of lacrosse, enjoys hanging out, being sort of lackadaisical... Everyone has their own opinion of a lax bro. That is mine." That is Chris MacKay's opinion of a lacrosse brother.