Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is, at its core, a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) magnet school. As such, most of the student body is assumed to be interested in fields relating to the sciences.
Despite the focus on academics, the sports community at Jefferson is a vibrant, lively body of students dedicated to their respective sports. In fact, a common saying amongst students and faculty is, “We came for the sports,” poking fun at the idea of athletes at a STEM school. However, assistant principal and former activities director Dylan Forshay takes the saying more seriously.
“I love that saying,” Forshay said. “When our kids are on the practice field, when our kids are competing, they’re there to compete and they’re [there] for the sport. It’s [a] nice reminder that we have pride in what we’re doing, too.”
To some students, the phrase pokes fun at the idea that most students came to Jefferson for academics. For softball captain Rilee McWeeney, “We came for the sports” also helps students recognize the benefits that come from playing a sport in high school.
“It’s not true, it’s funny, but it’s good,” McWeeney said. “It’s good for academic people to realize there’s a world outside of academics and sports can teach you life skills that academics can’t.”
McWeeney encourages students to participate in sports, regardless of if they have prior experience with a sport or want to pursue it in college.
“On the softball team, so many kids play [who] had never played a sport before in their entire life,” McWeeney said. “They succeeded and learned something from it, even if it was more mental and not about the actual game.”
For boys cross country, indoor track and outdoor track captain senior Ryan Power, the statement accurately represents his Jefferson experience. Power imagines he thrived more in Jefferson sports than he would have at his base school.
“For me, that phrase is very much true,” Power said. “I love everything about the quality of our track team and our sports [aren’t] necessarily any worse than a base school. In many ways, I thrive in the environment that we have more than I would at my base school.”
Running the numbers
How many Jefferson students participate in a sport, during their time here? One hundred students? Four hundred? What about a whole class, of over 500 students? All of those guesses would be significantly smaller than the actual amount. In fact, in 2022, over 50% of the student body participated in a sport, garnering 1,029 student-athletes of the 1,971 students attending Jefferson at the beginning of the school year.
The 2022-2023 school year marked the peak of a trend in sports participation following the coronavirus pandemic. A low of 778 students participated in sports during the 2020-2021 school year, back when most students were virtual. Fairfax County Public Schools returned to in-person learning during the 2021-2022 school year, and thus marked the beginning of the sports teams’ recovery from the pandemic.
Following the pandemic, Forshay was hired as Director of Student Services during the spring of 2022. His first impressions were positive, tinged with shock.
“Our student-athletes, those that participate in sports, are super committed, just like our students that are committed to any of the extracurriculars,” Forshay said. “It was a huge opportunity to come in and support the programs even more, to have even more success.”
To Forshay, success meant support in its different forms, from ensuring equal opportunity for all students.
“Success has always been making sure that there’s something for everyone, whether it’s trying something new, like even an upperclassman participating in a [Junior Varsity] sport,” Forshay said. “That’s one bucket of success, and then the other would be winning in the championships.”
One aspect of sports unique to Jefferson is commute time. Most students have a commute from home to school of at least half an hour, with some students in further areas upward of two hours. That combined with the later end to the school day, at 4 p.m., marks for scheduling challenges for the sports department.
“We’re very thoughtful in what games we schedule, when, where and why we schedule practices, where and who we schedule as opponents,” Forshay said. “We could easily play all of our games amongst the schools in Fairfax County, but it’s important for us to go out to Loudoun County and Prince William because that’s part of the big 1,300 square mile community that is [Jefferson].”
An unforeseen benefit to these difficult hours is learning how to manage time wisely. For senior Josie Whitaker, playing sports during all three seasons—volleyball, basketball and softball—taught her to manage her homework and studying accordingly.
“That’s probably one of my biggest takeaways from Jefferson, is just time management, especially as a student-athlete,” Whitaker said. “I think a lot of people don’t give credit to athletes. Nobody really considers that.”
Power also learned to manage his time well after school by participating in track for all three seasons of the year.
“I actually see it as a cyclic relationship,” Power said. “Say I have a test tomorrow. I have to get good sleep for the test, so I can’t stay up all night studying. As soon as I get home from practice, I study until my bedtime and then get good sleep. Because of that, I do well on the test, and because I got good sleep, I do well in the workout and practice. There’s more motivation to stay on top of things so that you don’t fall out of cycle with either your training or school.”
After spending the spring observing the current status of sports at Jefferson, the first thing Forshay and the athletics department changed was who games and scrimmages were scheduled against.
“Who are we scheduling our scrimmages against?” Forshay said. “If it’s one of our programs that’s very successful, let’s find really challenging games and scrimmages to push them. If it’s one of our programs that’s still developing inexperienced athletes, let’s find other schools that are in the same scenario so we can feel some success to aid our growth in that program. Being selective and not doing a one-size-fits-all was something that we implemented right away.”
Beyond the classroom
Zero to hero: girls softball wins big
“During freshman year, we weren’t sure if we were gonna have enough for a team,” Whitaker said. “On the loudspeakers, they would say, ‘Come out and join softball today.’ The program really struggled, I think, after COVID. It’s such a niche sport that it’s hard for a lot of people to just jump in.”
Senior captain McWeeney, who has played softball since she was four-years-old, had a similar experience as Whitaker.
“I was always planning on joining the team,” McWeeney said. “Then we realized, ‘Oh, this is gonna be a lot harder to actually compete with the other teams in the district.'”
Prior to the pandemic, softball had two teams, a varsity and junior varsity (JV). After getting through the 2021-2022 school year, the following team was comprised of mostly sophomores with little to no prior experience with sport.
“We had between 15 and 20 girls join, but only, like, five of them had ever played before in their entire life, and a lot of them had never swung a bat, had never even played a sport,” McWeeney said.
During the 2023-2024 season, the softball team got a new coach, Randi Davison, who implemented new training methods.
“She’s been really good about teaching people the fundamentals and helping them get into the sport,” Whitaker said.
By splitting practice into two groups—the infielders and outfielders—as well as between the varsity and developmental players, the team can ensure each player is getting the practice they need the way they need it.
“It was helpful that we usually split up between the varsity and the developmental girls,” Whitaker said. “The developmental girls could work with our Coach Paul, the assistant coach, and if they need help with something, he can just help drill it in. They’re just at different places, working on different things, and I think that helped just the overall team because everyone’s improving. No one was getting left behind, and no one was not being challenged.”
The girls with prior experience would try to help the players with no experience.
“A lot of times we’ll split up and work with infielders, and then have the team will work as outfielders and just do reps and drills with them,” McWeeney said. “Something that was really important for us to do, especially in the early years, was basically critique and help them new players with certain parts of their game.”
Having additional equipment for individuals who did not have prior experience in the sport helped grow the team, as well.
“We’ve tried to spend money and use the support of the Colonial Athletic Booster Club to make sure we had extra field hockey sticks, make sure we had extra boys and girls lacrosse sticks or softball gloves,” Forshay said. “If there was someone new, we didn’t want there to be a barrier of, ‘Oh, I’ve never played the sport, so I don’t have the equipment.'”
Last year, softball had enough athletes for a main team and a developmental team. This year, the girls have hopes to create a full JV team.
“When I got here for my first day, the week of tryouts, we had nine students total registered for softball,” Forshay said. “Nine. That’s not even a full team on the field, let alone the bench. The growth that that program has seen in three years is incredible. There’s a possibility that this spring, under the leadership of [Dave] Arthur, that we could field a JV team. To think about barely having a varsity team coming out of COVID and now we’re going to add a JV team. That’s huge.”
Each individual player and the team as a whole are now performing well on the Districts level.
“We’re doing so much better now than last year,” McWeeney said. “We had every single infielder, the six girls on team, get an honorable mention or some sort of district award, and we got fourth in Districts. People look at it more positively than they did in freshman year.”
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Half a decade later, stronger than ever
Overall, most teams have recovered from the pandemic and are at a newer, higher motivation level.
“Sports at [Jefferson] has improved a lot,” Power said. “Coming out of COVID-19, we had to rebuild a lot from where we were pre-COVID, and now the team is a lot more motivated. That took a couple of years, but now there’s a lot of focus on athletics, and it’s bleeding out. A lot of people who aren’t in athletics right now are becoming more open to it and want to try doing a sport.”
Senior softball captain Rilee McWeeney also noticed an increase in students interested in participating in sports.
“I just feel like I see more people wanting to play sports and wanting to try softball,” McWeeney said. “I’ve seen all the people who are gonna try out this year, and there’s a lot of new people. It’s so cool.”