My community is a close knitted group of friends from the Texas Christian Lacrosse team. There's a little less than a dozen of us, and everyone is currently on the team or has played. You may be wondering what's so special about us, we appear as your ordinary boy group. On the outside it may appear like that, however for us, it's much deeper. Our community has been built on trust and loyalty, we are reliant on that and hold each other to that. All of us are from different parts of United States, with that we all carry our own unique stories and problems. Since we embedded that trust and loyalty within our community, it's easier for us to be open about our issues and problems we're facing. Some of us suffer mental health issues, we're able to be open to each other about that. You tend to find it harder for boys to speak up about their mental health issues, however for us it's different. We encourage each other to talk about our mental health issues, so that we're able to help one and another. With college naturally being a high stress environment, it's extremely nice to have a community you know you can fall back to, when you're in need of help, someone to talk to, or a place and people to have fun with.

For this interview I asked one of my community members, Mason D'Elia a few questions about our community.

• How did you find yourself in this community?

Coming into my freshman year we were given a list of everyone on the incoming freshman class for the lacrosse team. I ended up getting in contact with one of my future teammates and asked him if he needed a roommate. We ended up rooming together our freshman year, and just got closer with more guys on the team until we grew that unbreakable bond.

• As a kid, did you ever imagine having a community like this?

I played lacrosse throughout my childhood and other sports, I've always been close with my teammates however not this close, I think us truly being independent and older has helped create that bond like no other.

• How does this community benefit you?

I always have a group to fall back onto. I'm able to decompress with the guys and talk about anything. We're almost always smiling or laughing about something when together. Juggling ROTC and school can be stressful at times so it's nice to be able to decompress and laugh.

• What's your favorite thing about this community?

How close we are, that bond we have together. We have a ton of inside jokes and know almost everything about each other, including the not good stuff. Some of us struggle with mental health issues, so I think that bond is even closer. I can truly be myself, and express myself when with this group of guys.

• What do you believe are the morals/values for this community?

I think some morals and values we have in this group, is being true to ourselves, being respectful, being understanding. Some guys in this group had an incident where they were asked to be unloyal to each other and they stayed loyal to each other, so I think loyalty is another big one.

• Is there something you would like to change about this community?

Sometimes we can be assholes to each other but that's because we care, normally if they're being an asshole to me I deserve it. Besides that, I can't really complain about anything.