Jaliyah “Jelly” Richards, a 15-year-old sophomore at Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School, is not one to sit on the sidelines, but for a while, she had no choice.
On TV, she watched the Pittsburgh Steelers. In life, she watched her older brothers -- Mekhi, 18, and Jayden, 17. It made her interested in the game, but she wasn’t content to be a spectator. She wanted to play. When she was 7, she got her chance. “I've been playing running back really since I started football…in a peewee football league,” Richards said. While a female football player is rare, it’s not unheard of. Even all those years ago, Richards remembers other girls on the field. “My first year of playing football, my brothers had a girl playing with them too, and the year before, too, I think,” she said. After the peeweel league, Richards joined a youth football team and won the 2022 national championship.
The physicality of the game is an incentive rather than a drawback for the 5-foot, 125-pound Richards, who has always enjoyed roughhousing with her brothers at home. “Playing football was a way I could roughhouse with people my own size and hopefully win. When I was younger, the mindset was, if I can roughhouse with my brothers then someone my own age can't really hurt me,” she explained, “and by now I trust my line to block for me and not let me get hit by someone that big.”
Now, she’s a running back on the Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School varsity football team who made headlines for her 70-yard run into the end zone for a touchdown in a game against Cranford High School. She’s the second female football player to score a touchdown in a boys’ varsity game in the history of New Jersey. Next season, her goal is to score more than one touchdown and to earn a starting spot on the varsity team.
Richards’s athletic prowess extends beyond football, however. In the off-season, she stays in shape by playing flag football and being on the wrestling team, as well as working out when she can. During the season, she works out with the team and in the summer, she participates in Summer conditioning, even if she’d rather be at the beach. No specific exercises are mentioned, but regular physical activity means diets are unnecessary. “I just eat what my heart desires,” she said, mentioning her mom’s alfredo pasta as a particular favorite.
Richards says that the camaraderie of the sport is one of her favorite aspects. “It's really just the friendships and relationships you make from it. That's a really big part for me,” she said. The extra attention she’s gotten recently, while exciting, is unfamiliar and has somewhat affected her approach to games. “I'm not really an outgoing person so a lot more people talking to me is a little overwhelming. I feel like now that I kind of have more of a spotlight on me, I feel that I… have to play good, or play better than usual,” she said. “I kind of think about my performance before games now. Listening to music helps to decompress. It's really just a way for me to relax.” A bit of ritual and superstition help, as well. Richards says that every game she wears socks she received as a Christmas present from Jayden with a graphic of a $100 bill split between the pair.
For those who hope to follow in Richards’s cleated footsteps, her advice is simple: “I would just say go for it because…I feel like if you really want to do something then there should be nothing to stop you.”