The athlete who can't play because his head is too big

All Alex Chu wants to do is play lacrosse.

The 19-year-old was recruited to Wheaton College in Illinois to play, thanks to a standout season in his last year of high school.

The problem is that, legally, he cannot play.

Unfortunately for the teenager, he has a very large head.

A head so large (not due to ego) that a regulation helmet, approved by the NCAA, literally cannot fit over his head.

Chu’s head, which measures 63.5 centimetres in circumference, simply does not fit even the largest helmet available for purchase.

Because there is no NCAA approved helmet that fits him, Chu has been consigned to training drills with his team until a solution is found.

Chu told the Boston Globe that a solution is proving more difficult to come across than you might think.

“Lacrosse is kind of my whole life,” he said.

“I can’t remember ever going this long without playing.”

No easy answers

While Chu’s predicament isn’t unheard of, it seems to be extremely difficult to get one of the two NCAA approved helmet manufacturers to pull together a custom helmet for the budding goalkeeper.

Chu had apparently worn a helmet which had been made for him by a local fabricator during high school.

Unfortunately, by the time he was ready for college it was so beaten up it was no longer deemed safe.

Mike Oliver runs the NCAA committee which ensure helmets are safe for use in college play.

He told the Globe that cases of “someone with a really big noggin” come up every now and then, but it is often difficult to assist them.

““It’s extremely frustrating,” he said.

“But we don’t have leverage over the manufacturers. We can’t compel them to make a special helmet.

“We can encourage them, cajole them, work with them, but not command them.”

A representative from one of the two approved helmet manufacturers said making a custom helmet for Chu would be “cost prohibitive”.

They said re-tooling machinery for custom headwear would cost more than $10,000.