The powderpuff game, a flag football event where girls play and boys cheerlead, was canceled the week before Homecoming due to a lack of time and planning. After the last Jefferson powderpuff game in 2013, seniors from the Class of 2025 attempted to revive this unique experience for this year’s Homecoming week. However, due to a lack of organization and infrastructure, the powderpuff game was not prepared in time.
“[Josie Clayton and I] took it into our own hands and emailed Dylan Forshay, the activities coordinator at Jefferson, and asked what we needed to do for powderpuff to become a thing,” senior class council secretary Kaiden Kerkulah said.
However, this was difficult because of the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) policy, which requires participants to have a Virginia High School League (VHSL) physical completed.
“We had to make sure the participants would have a physical by the time we played,” Kerkulah said. “We were gonna come up with a more formulated plan. We had the idea of going in person to see who would be interested rather than [just] posting on social media.”
By doing this and posting a flyer on social media platforms, they received approximately 60 interested participants. Unfortunately, most of the people who signed up didn’t have the proper VHSL physicals, applying for the wrong part of the game, such as boys signing up to play the football game.
“Really, it just came down to timing,” Forshay said. “It was mostly the senior class advocating for it and they tried to pull all the things together. It’s just something that we should have been communicating in the spring when we do Homecoming conventions.”
Therefore, there is still a chance for this event to happen on Jefferson Day (J Day), a tradition at Jefferson where students can participate in various activities outside or purchase items from booths.
“If any girls are interested in playing, then they should reach out to either me or Kaiden, and hopefully we can have this game,” senior Josie Clayton said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun.”