By Tabitha Evans Moore, EDITOR & PUBLISHER
LYNCHBURG – It’s Sunday afternoon on Jacey Lane. Ten-year-old Emaley Thomas and 12 -year-old Journey Fox sit rough housing and giggling in Emaley’s living room. Both still wear their Legends of Tennessee Football Camp t-shirts. The event took place the day before at Moore County High School.
According to event organizers, the duo were two of six girls who attended the camp –including Annie Wilhelm, Emaley Thomas, Ayla Overcast, Lilly Millspaugh, Journey Fox, and Sunsaray Johnson – along with nearly 130 other local and regional athletes. The Lynchburg Chamber of Commerce sponsored the first-ever event.
Setting the tone in flag football
Emaley attends Lynchburg Elementary School and is the daughter of Trista and Seth Thomas. Trista lives here on Jacey Lane and Seth lives just up the street on Ridgeville Road. Journey is in the seventh grade at Moore County Middle School. She is the daughter of Shena Woods and Teejay Beasley, both of Lynchburg.
Both young ladies love watching and playing football. Emaley says tossing the football around with her dad sparked her interest in the sport. Not long after that, she learned about Lynchburg’s new NFL Flag Football League through school.
The new league is for local players ages 5-14. They compete in two seasons – a summer season that kicks off in July and a winter season that takes place in November. Organizers divided the co-ed league into two divisions: one for ages 5-8 and a second for ages 9-14. It’s a face-paced, no-contact, inclusive sport that’s easy to learn.
Reese says his first experience with a youth flag football tournament sold him on bringing the sport to Lynchburg.
“We brought a team to a flag football tournament and the kids just had a blast. It’s competitive but also low pressure to both play and watch. It’s almost a relaxing thing to watch your kid out there just purely enjoying playing a sport.”
Trista says she felt zero reservations about letting her tenacious daughter play a traditionally male sport like football.
“Yeah, I knew that she would dominate,” Trista laughs. “She’s pretty fearless and driven to be the best as whatever she sets her mind to.”
Trista says that she and Seth discussed it and decided that, at this age, there wasn’t any real size advantage between the boys and girls that might result in an injury, so they let Emaley go for it.
“She’s faster than a lot of the boys right now. She’s also very agile, and quick on her feet. We explained that those facts would change as she got older.”
Journey says her interest in football began when she played recess football with the boys in her grade at Lynchburg Elementary. When she found out there would be a co-ed flag football league for her age, she jumped at the opportunity. In fact, league organizer Derrick Reese says Journey was the first player to sign up.
“I would say the tone setter for getting girls to sign up was Journey Foxx. She was the first person to sign up for the league period and then three other little girls signed up for our first season. She also came to me wanting private lessons to learn how to play football.”
Sadie Ivey and Emaley Thomas followed in season two and they brought their already well-established athletic abilities with them.
“From the beginning, the boys understood their athletic abilities because they’ve watched them play softball and basketball,” Reese says. “They did not take it easy on those girls at all, and those girls didn’t take it easy on the boys.”
“Girls can be tough too.“
Emaley and Journey say they play for similar reasons as the boys – to have fun and hang out with their friends. They say in the beginning they got strange looks from some of the boys, but they both feel like that faded over the season. Neither really cares about all that anyway, they just want to play.
“It just feels good to get out there and do my best,” Journey says. “If I do good, I feel proud and if I don’t have a great game, I know it’s not the end of my season. It’s just one game.”
Emaley says she likes the competition and the opportunity to play a contact sport.
“I like to be rough and not just pretty all the time,” Emaley says, which elicits a sly grin from Trista. “I just want to beat somebody, I don’t care. I just want to hit something. Girls can be tough too.”
Emaley and Journey both agreed that the coaches at the Legends of Tennessee Football Camp made them feel special and included. Before camp started, Emaley says one of the coaches told everybody in attendance, “I’ll tell you right now that these three girls are the best ones here.”
“I can’t say enough good things about all the coaches,” Emaley’s mom Trista says. “They were so very encouraging to all the girls.”
During her NFL flag football season, Emaley says she plays all over the field but mostly as a receiver. During the camp, coaches taught her more about the wide receiver position and she learned new routes.
Journey says that during the camp, coaches paired the girls up with other boys their age and she learned more about the positions of cornerback and safety.
Girls flag football as an emerging sport
Both Emaley and Journey may get an opportunity to play on a Moore County Raiderette Flag Football Team in the future.
Recent success with flag football leagues – particularly with girls – has led to the sanctioning of girls’ flag football at the high school level by the Tennessee Secondary School Athletics Association (TSSAA).
On April 9 of this year, after two seasons of Tennessee high school girls flag football pilot programs in Williamson, Davidson and Montgomery counties, the TSSAA voted unanimously to sanction the sport for the 2024-25 school year as a spring sport.
Williamson County Schools began a pilot program in the spring of 2022 with support from the Tennessee Titans. At the time, a Williamson County Schools survey showed 650 of 800 female athletes asked said they would be interested in playing flag football. It was the first interscholastic flag football league in Tennessee.
According to the TSSAA, what began in nine Williamson County Schools in 2022 quickly spread across the state. There are now girls’ flag football teams in 48 schools across Tennessee. The Upper Cumberland area and Hamilton County started girls flag football this year to help push that number up. In 2025, officials expect at least 70 schools in Tennessee to filed teams.
Like all emerging sports, girls’ flag football will go through a one-year trial period. TSSAA officials say the goal would be to develop participation numbers to the point that a state championship could be played. This upcoming season, the TSSAA will work to classify participating schools into districts, regions, and/or sections for a postseason invitational.
Reese says he’s also planning to speak with Motlow State about the possibility of bringing women’s flag football to the local community college.
Hope to inspire other local athletes
Both Emaley and Journey say they have their own favorite Moore County High School athletes and sports traditions here in Lynchburg.
“I really like the Pink Out game every fall when the Raiders play,” Emaley says. She also says the student athlete she most admires is MCHS’s recent Class 1A Mr. Football Dawson White.
“He’s just very encouraging,” Emaley says. “He’s also very confident on the field.”
Journey says she looks up to MCHS Raiderette, Hannah Martin. Martin, who plays guard for the varsity girls’ basketball team, was born with a congenital defect of her left arm, but you’d never know it to watch her on the court.
“She’s just very brave,” Journey says. “She doesn’t let it stop her. She doesn’t care what other people think, and she’s good at it too. Her arm is barely a disability. Unless you are paying close attention, you’d never know.”
When I explain what it means to break a gender boundary and ask Emaley and Journey what it feels like to show up in a space that wasn’t built for them, they both puff up a bit.
“It feels good because we can encourage other girls who might be scared but want to play football. They’ll know that it’s okay, and if they’re good at it, then there’s no reason to hide it,” Journey says.
Emaley takes a more show don’t tell approach.
“Last season in the flag league, one of the boys on the other team asked me why I didn’t just become a cheerleader instead. I asked him what was wrong with girls playing football. He never answered me back, and then we scored like six touchdowns against him,” Emaley says with a shrug.
It’s a story Reese repeats during our interview. He explained that he heard very little trash talk during practice or games, but suspected that there may have been some comments happening at school.
“Emaley pretty much shut everything up on the very first game,” Reese explains. “She scored six touchdowns in her first weekend and got named our Player of the Week. She set the tone from game one. She can run. She can catch and she and Sadie on defense pull any flag that gets near them.”
If you have a local child aged 5 to 14 who would like to play in the Lynchburg NFL Flag Football League signups for the summer season are happening now. It’s open to not only Moore County kids but also those from the surrounding counties.
The summer season happens during the month of July and practice takes place one hour before games, which happen on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They play two, twenty-minute halves with a running clock. To learn more, visit the Reese Athletics website by clicking here. •
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