A pack of blue-clad teenagers fan out across a turf field in Alexandria, Virginia, eager to begin practice. It’s early October, and after a month of late-summer heat, there is a welcome crisp in the air. At last — football weather.
The Colonials of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology quickly get to work. They run through blocking and tackling drills, motivated by a game day around the corner. As her players prepare, Rachel Worsham circles the field with a watchful eye.
Earlier this year, Worsham made headlines by becoming the first female varsity football coach in Virginia high school history. At Thomas Jefferson — long considered one of the best public high schools in the country — the position brings unique challenges for a new coach looking to establish a football culture.
“A lot of the kids — I would say half, give or take — have not played football before,” Worsham said. “If they have, it’s been flag football instead of tackle.”
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Thomas Jefferson pulls top students from across Northern Virginia into specialized programs focused on college preparation. The school’s coursework is rigorous and time-consuming, making athletic dreams all the more difficult to pursue and, as a result, sports turnout low.
Not far from the football field, the school lists each of its state championship victories in black letters on a brick wall. Atop the list is the school’s decorated debate team. The Scholastic Bowl team and honors band are also featured. The football team is not.
The program may lack prestige, but that didn’t stop Worsham from earnestly applying to the job when it opened in the offseason. A lifelong football fanatic, she saw an opportunity to teach the sport she loves to a group of novices. Now in the thick of her first season, she’s doing just that.
Midway through practice, her voice cuts through the air. It’s time for conditioning. The Colonials line up along the sideline and turn to face their coach.
“If anyone doesn’t go 100%, we start over!” she says.
“Yes, coach!” the players respond.
The whistle blows and they sprint up and back across the turf, returning to the white line a little more breathless each time. To Worsham’s delight, nobody is caught in a jog. After three rounds of sprints, the Colonials break for water and their coach scans the sideline with a grin.
“Aren’t you the track guy?” she asks one player, who is panting with his hands on his hips.
“I run short distance!” he protests. They both laugh.
Worsham fell in love with football growing up in the Midwest. While there weren’t any opportunities for her to play the sport growing up, her passion bloomed as she watched NFL and college games on TV. After graduating from Michigan State, she packed her bags and moved to the D.C. area in the early 2000s.
Worsham didn’t know many people upon her arrival to D.C., so she made connections through Michigan State’s alum network. She quickly found herself a spot on the group’s flag football squad. Soon after, a women’s tackle team — the D.C. Divas of the Women’s Football Alliance — recruited her to play on their offensive line.
“The rest is history,” Worsham said with a smile. “They couldn’t get me off the field until I was done, injury-wise.”
Worsham played 12 seasons for the Divas, winning two national championships. In 2024, she was named to the team’s Hall of Fame.
When injuries put an end to her playing days, she pivoted to coaching. She started at the youth level, then moved to high school. She worked as an offensive line coach at Marshall High in Fairfax for six seasons, then spent two more as an assistant head coach and coordinator for Robinson. Last year, she served as Robinson’s girls’ flag football coach.
“I am not a flag football person by heart, because as a lineman we don’t play the game. So I wanted to get back to my tackle roots,” Worsham said. “That’s why I was so excited that this opportunity came up.”
She was officially hired in January, a few months after Thomas Jefferson hired Jennifer Hammond to coach its varsity baseball team.
Since her arrival, Worsham has honed in on teaching the X’s and O’s of the game. That includes basic principles, like where to line up or what constitutes a penalty. In an attempt to relate to her physics-minded student-athletes, she once likened tackling to two magnets attracting one another.
“We had a practice where we taught them how to fall,” Worsham said. “That’s not normally how you want to do it, and you don’t want to teach falling, but hey — we have to fall, we have to get back up and we have to be safe when we do it.”
As the sun starts to set on this Tuesday practice, the Colonials trot out their offensive unit to continue rehearsing their plays for Friday’s game. Luke Brazie leads the charge — he dons a red practice jersey that he’s cropped above his waist, revealing a back plate that displays the phrase: “DO NOT CROSS”.
Brazie, a senior, is one of the few players on the field who has spent four years in the Colonials’ program. He typically plays wide receiver and defensive back, but with the team’s starting quarterback in concussion protocol this week, he’s taken over under center.
Brazie has seen the impact of Worsham’s coaching firsthand, particularly on the inexperienced freshmen and sophomores. The Colonials have picked up fewer procedural penalties as the season has gone on and the special teams unit has gained confidence. Despite some injuries, things are starting to move in the right direction.
It’s a departure from the past, Brazie said, and a glimpse at what the future of the program could look like.
“It’s a definite culture shift … it’s certainly different this year in a good way,” Brazie said. “We’re more prepared, we’re more competent. We don’t have quite as many talented players, so it doesn’t show on the scoreboard yet, but over the course of [the underclassmen]’s development, I truly do expect to see, over the next few years, T.J. become better than it’s been in a long time.”
After falling into an early 0-2 hole, Worsham’s Colonials got their first chance at victory against Manassas Park in mid-September. Behind a strong night from Brazie, Thomas Jefferson took a 14-6 lead deep into the fourth quarter. But Manassas Park responded with a lengthy touchdown drive. All of a sudden, the Colonials were two points away from potentially squandering their first real chance at victory.
On the two-point try, Brazie lined up man-to-man against the Cougars’ top wide receiver. The ball was lobbed their way, and Brazie got his hand on it to seal the victory.
“I knew I would come out with the win,” Brazie said.
That win marked more than one milestone: It was the first time a woman had ever led a boys football team to a varsity win in Virginia, but it was also the first time many of Worsham’s players had ever won a football game, period. And it left them wanting more.
In the final minutes of practice, Worsham brings the team in for a brief huddle. Brazie and his teammates kneel on the turf and stare up at their coach. Not far from the center of the huddle is Sohum Das, a freshman wide receiver and linebacker who is learning the sport at the varsity level.
In a few minutes, both Brazie and Das will leave this field and reenter the hectic world of high-level high school academics — homework and midterms and college futures. Brazie is set on attending a large engineering school next year. Das is gunning for Thomas Jefferson’s pre-med course and is also interested in pursuing mechanical engineering.
But at this moment, as Worsham breaks the huddle one last time to signal the end of practice, they are just football players doing what they love.
“When I become a senior, I want to go 8-0,” Das said. “All wins.”
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