Charlottesville High's first girls flag football team hosted Fluvanna County and Western Albemarle in a jamboree Oct. 24. The club is not yet a varsity sport in Virginia.

Charlottesville High School’s first girls flag football team played its first games Saturday, Oct. 24. The Black Knights hosted a free three-team jamboree against Fluvanna County and Western Albemarle.

Updated Oct. 29: the jamboree took place Saturday, Oct. 24. As of Thursday, Oct. 29, Charlottesville City Schools had not published results; this story will add them if the district does.

The team is a club, not yet a sanctioned varsity sport. It began with a student’s email. As an eighth grader at Buford Middle School, she wrote to the high school asking it to start a team, according to a Charlottesville City Schools article published Tuesday, Oct. 20. Two years later she is a sophomore and the team’s quarterback.

More than 20 girls now practice on many afternoons on the field next to the CHS baseball stadium, the district said.

The jamboree

  • What: CHS girls flag football jamboree, round-robin format
  • When: 3 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24
  • Where: the infield at the Curtis Elder Track and Field Complex
  • Admission: free
Time Game
3 p.m. Charlottesville vs. Fluvanna County
4 p.m. Fluvanna County vs. Western Albemarle
5 p.m. Charlottesville vs. Western Albemarle

Fluvanna County is the county just east of Albemarle. Western Albemarle High School is in Crozet, about 12 miles west of Charlottesville.

Who is coaching

The coach is Kelcei Edmonds-Tindal, an English teacher at CHS. She previously coached in a Pittsburgh Steelers girls flag football pilot program and plays for the Charlottesville Bears rugby club, the district said.

Some players are new to the sport. “I have some girls out here who were not catching the ball at all when we started, and now they are,” Edmonds-Tindal said in the district’s article. “It’s been amazing, really.”

Before the jamboree she said she expected the first game day to win over players who were unsure. Being in the environment, she said, will show “a couple of my girls who are iffy about it” that the sport is real.

Will it become a varsity sport?

Not yet. The Virginia High School League does not sanction girls flag football, but the sport is growing in the state, the district said:

  • Girls flag football is already a sanctioned high school sport in Maryland and Washington, D.C.
  • Pennsylvania’s state association sanctioned it in 2024.
  • The Washington Commanders work with more than 100 high school girls flag football programs in Virginia, 51 of them fielding teams for the first time this fall. That program does not yet include schools in the Charlottesville area.

“It’s an emerging sport,” said Andy Jones, the CHS athletics and activities director. “I think it is going to eventually be a full-on sanctioned sport. It’s great for CHS to be a part of it.”

What it means for you

  • Interested in playing? Families of Charlottesville City Schools students can ask the CHS athletics office about the club.

For Friday night results and the rest of the high school season, see our scoreboard and our Charlottesville High School page.