The lacrosse world has been waiting for an emoji for the sport for years. Fans have used and overused the #NoLaxEmoji hashtag until it got the attention of those willing to take action, like Nicole Bohorad, who led a group in submitting a proposal for a lacrosse emoji to the Unicode consortium in 2016.
It seems the hard work that Bohorad, US Lacrosse President & CEO Steven Stenersen and Tewaaraton Foundation Exectuve Director Sarah Aschenbach did last last year might be paying off.
On Monday, lacrosse took the next step, the biggest yet, to having its own emoji. Unicode, the company responsible for selecting the emojis that will appear on your iPhone keyboard, revealed the beta version for the 2018 emojis, called Emoji 11.0, according to Business Insider.
Within the 42 potential new emojis — which included a bald person, a kangaroo and a peacock among others— was a lacrosse stick and ball. Upon closer examination (shutting one eye and squinting), it’s hard to tell whether the stick is men’s or women’s, but it accompanies an orange ball. The stick looks similar to the one designed by former Limestone player Mike Freudiger.
The lacrosse community finally has its first look at how an emoji representing the sport could look.
Lacrosse Twitter reacted, as it normally does, quickly to the news.
I’ve never been more excited for new emojis. Finally a #lacrosse emoji https://t.co/xkVQiAyinY
— Josh Austin (@jausti_lax) December 5, 2017
The Lacrosse Emoji is one step away from being on the emoji keyboard!!!
— RvilleUSA (@Rvilleusa) December 5, 2017
LACROSSE!!!! FINALLY!!! https://t.co/OzjhOjgiJt
— Official Lax Girl™ (@officiallaxgirl) December 5, 2017
Finally! Lacrosse Emoji! #Abouttime https://t.co/ujVmrDf2Ck
— John Sung (@VTLaxCoach) December 5, 2017
But let’s not celebrate just yet, because the potential emojis unveiled Monday are just that. Unicode has until next month to make the 2018 emojis official, meaning it could move the lacrosse emoji out of the lineup before then.
The final 2018 lineup, according to Emojipedia’s Jeremy Burge, won’t be revealed until March of 2018, and wouldn’t reach phones until the second half of next year.
So there’s still more waiting to do, but the vision of the lacrosse emoji will be dancing in our heads until then. Stay tuned.