CHARLES CITY COUNTY
Under stadium lights on four Friday nights this fall, Charles City County came together as a community.
Its favorite pastime — high school football — had returned after a yearlong hiatus. Charles City High School, the sixth-smallest high school in Virginia, did not field a football team in 2018 because of low participation numbers.
But football’s absence from the community was short-lived. Sherod Jones, a 1998 graduate and former star player, made sure of that.
After hearing Charles City didn’t have enough players last year, he returned home to coach and revitalize the program.
In a small town with about 7,000 residents and almost no commercial businesses, he said there aren’t a lot of extracurricular activities available for kids.
The community needs football, he said. Not just for its present but, more importantly, for its future.
“We’re just trying to raise young men. It’s bigger than football,” Jones said. “We know that football brings the community together because it allowed us to get Friday night lights back.
“Everybody loves that, but we just want to get some positive young men that are going to continue to come back and build the community.”
Jones, along with athletics director Andre Jones, did just that. Andre graduated from Charles City in 1999 and has worked at the school for 16 years.
Both grew up in the county, and said pride in their hometown compelled them to return and help mold the next generation.
Andre is essentially an assistant coach to Sherod. During a practice in late October, Andre took snaps under center, laughing with the players and offering advice to the backs and O-line while Sherod stood between the linebackers and secondary, directing the defense.
“When we hired Coach Jones we wanted somebody not focused on winning but bringing this community back together,” Andre said of Sherod, adding that around 500-plus Charles City residents turned out for the program’s first few home games since 2017.
“It’s something to be proud of. These kids work hard, but it’s the support from the community that makes it all worthwhile.”
Andre said residents have turned out in droves to support the team. They volunteer to work the concession stands, bring players water and Gatorade, and show the players just how much they mean to the community.
“Everybody wants to be a part of a feel-good story. It’s up to them,” Andre said, pointing to the players huddled around Sherod at midfield, “to be the ones to alter the story, that’s something I strongly believe in with this bunch.”
More than half of Charles City’s 27 players are freshmen. With the influx of youth and Sherod’s commitment to the program, Andre said the future is bright for his Panthers.
“This is the prologue of the book, the beginning of the beginning,” he said. “And they have a story to tell, each of them as individuals. But you put it all together, you have one masterpiece.”
The players could feel football’s absence in 2018. A few upperclassmen have seen the difference not having football makes.
“I think it brings a lot back to the community … it felt like it was a big piece missing out of Charles City,” said junior quarterback Leo Charity.
“And everybody in Charles City loves football.”
Charity called football “his life.” He wants to convert his talent on the gridiron into a scholarship and play at the college level. This season, he said, went by in the blink of an eye.
Senior quarterback Keondre Barnes never planned on playing in college, until his coaches started encouraging him.
“I never thought I could get a scholarship for football. But my coach has been talking to me about playing at the next level,” he said with excitement in his voice.
Both added that the environment this fall has been “crazy.”
“Basically, we just continue to support these kids,” Andre said.
“The most important thing is to just see these kids go out and be successful in life,” Sherod added. “And when they graduate one day, to come back the same way coach Andre came back. He didn’t have to. I didn’t have to. But it means something when the people that grew up in the county come back.”
Charles City is about 45 minutes from downtown Richmond, going east on Route 5.
It’s not the fastest, but traveling the winding two-lane road through the pastoral landscape along the James River gives visitors an authentic introduction to the county.
If you drove there on a Friday night in 2018, you weren’t likely to see many people out and about.
Now, you could come across hundreds. Just look for the lights.