4 Standfast Brothers Commit to Navy on Same Day

The connection of the four Standfast brothers was on full display in a game at last summer’s National American Lacrosse.

Geoff took the faceoff and sent the ball back through his legs. Jack scooped it up from the wing and hit a cutting Brady, who fed Tommy for a goal for True Illinois.

“We used to have this running joke when we played club hockey growing up,” Jack said. “There was an announcer, they’d say, ‘Standfast to Standfast to Standfast.’ And then we do it at this level with the faceoff plays winning it back and pushing in transition. It would just be really cool to continue that at the next level.”

The vision got a little closer with the Class of 2028 brothers announcing together in a single Instagram post their commitment to Navy on July 1, the first day of allowable direct contact for service academies with rising high school juniors.

They each fill different positions on the field, but their collective announcement seemed only fitting.

“All four of us feel like that was the best way to go about it,” Tommy said. “I mean, we’re all brothers. We’re all in this together. We’ve been doing this ever since we were younger.”

The response to their commitment was widespread. It was a bit overwhelming with multiple outlets and platforms sharing their news.

“It was awesome,” Geoff said. “We had lots of support from our teammates and coaches and a lot of friends and family members. And it was really cool and super exciting for us because we’ve been working toward this forever.”

Geoff, Jack and Brady are triplets. They are 15 months older than Tommy, and they reclassified to 2028 this year, putting them in the same class as Tommy, who had played up with them for most of his athletic career. They will be juniors at Culver Academy (Ind.), and the package deal made them even more attractive to Navy.

“Somebody called them the quadlets,” said their mother, Caren Standfast. “When you have them that close in age, while you love when they all do something together because then that helps the logistics side of things, you try to foster their sense of identity and their uniqueness. While they branched out into other sports and other interests and other things, lacrosse has always been that constant thing that they’ve tied together, and they’ve always played that together.”

Caren Standfast, the dean of Culver Girls Academy, is the matriarch of a family that continues to expand its Navy connections. A 2000 Navy graduate herself, she played lacrosse there when it was still a club sport, helping the Mids enjoy success as they pushed to become a Division I sport (their first season was 2008).

The boys’ sister, Annie, graduated from Navy in 2020 and was on the triathlon team. Last year, she married former Navy midfielder Ian Burgoyne, who was selected by teammates to wear the No. 40 jersey in honor of the fallen Navy SEAL and former Navy lacrosse player Lt. Brendan Looney in 2019.

“We knew we were getting a good one,” Caren said.

Geoff Standfast Sr. could end up being the only member of the family to not attend Navy, but he served for over 20 years in the Marine Corps, the sister service of the Navy. He is now Director of Operations — Advancement at Culver and is as an assistant coach for the Culver boys’ lacrosse team, focusing on strength and conditioning.

“From a young age, he’s been motivating us,” Brady said. “We used to have family fun when we were little where we’d go out and go on runs or work out or compete and play lacrosse or soccer. And then as we’ve grown up, it’s grown into the other sports where we’ve been able to go and compete to see who’s faster or go see who can lift more.”

When the brothers have been united, their competitiveness has made it tough on other teams. They would place first through fourth in cross country in middle school meets. When they competed against each other, it could get rough.

“Everything is competitive in our house from brushing teeth to who’s gonna be the first to do whatever the thing is — tying shoes to riding bikes to losing their teeth — it was always competitive, and Tommy included,” Caren said. “I think you always hope that your kids are tight and they value each other, and I think over the years with being at Culver they started to value themselves as brothers and look at themselves as brothers.”

Each of the four plays a different position. They aren’t competing with each other — they’re working together.

Geoff Jr. is a faceoff specialist, something that developed during COVID out of practicing with his brothers more than ever. For Jack, it was coach Peter Fusari at Building Blocks Lacrosse in New Jersey that suggested he grab a pole, and he can play LSM or SSDM. Brady has always been leaner, easily moving quickly up and down the field as a midfielder. Tommy has benefited from being the younger brother and playing up through the years, but he’s always been a quick-learning offensive standout.

“We all have pretty different personalities,” Brady said. “Like Geoff loves having control of the ball. He loves battling. Jack has always been aggressive, so he loves playing defense, throwing punches on defense, like working with his ‘D’ to keep the net safe. And Tommy’s always been super quick, and he loves just attacking, feeding guys and scoring goals. And then I feel like I’ve been running and good at playing both sides of the ball. I’ve enjoyed playing two-way offense and defense.”

They all felt drawn to Navy after attending its summer camp last year. The ideas of brotherhood and service are important to them. They see that in Navy and see making a commitment to something bigger than lacrosse, though the game plays in perfectly with their mindsets.

“If you just look at the nature of the sport and the values and skills that you absorb, it becomes a part of you, and it’s reflected really well in the leadership and military positions,” Jack said. “With the way we’ve grown up, and just seeing the type of leaders and overall good people that it produces, it’s a really good fit.”

Those ideals have been fostered from a young age. Culver is a small town in which the youth play every sport together. They need each other just to have enough for teams. Aside from a short time in New Jersey, the Standfast boys grew up in that culture, trying all sorts of different sports, but they gravitated to lacrosse under former Culver coach Jon Posner, who left for Lawrenceville (N.J.) in 2020. The school has shaped their path.

“The culture is set by the school and by the coaches, and the kids go to work, and you can see the fruits of their efforts, whether it’s in the classroom or on the athletic field or in the direction of leadership, because that’s the approach,” Geoff Sr. said. “Go in and go to work, get your hands dirty, learn, experience, make a couple mistakes, move on. And I think that that’s what’s really helped our kids see all these things and get a chance to experience it.”

Geoff Sr. is grateful that those lessons have continued for his boys on the lacrosse field under Keith Euker, who took over the program last year. Euker led the team to a 14-1 mark and the No. 3 national ranking in his first season.

Lacrosse remains the one commonality even when they’ve followed other pursuits. Geoff Jr. and Tommy played competitive ice hockey right up until last year. Jack is an outstanding guitarist and music lover who plays in a band. Tommy is an avid fisherman. They enjoy meeting friends to go jet skiing on the lake near their Culver home.

“We all, of course, have our unique traits,” Jack said. “And the magic happens when we bring all of those together.”

It’s Culver and True Lacrosse that are benefitting from their cohesion now. It’ll be Navy in a couple years. The package deal could help the Midshipmen, even if they can’t promise to duplicate the sort of tic tac toe scoring play from NAL.

“If that ever happens in college, great,” Geoff Sr. said. “It happens now, and it’s pretty neat.”