Randolph College adds women's flag football, eyes spring 2028 debut

Randolph College has added women’s flag football, giving the Lynchburg Division III school a new program that is scheduled to take the field in spring 2028. The move makes flag football the fifth new sport introduced under athletic director Tom Galbraith, and Randolph’s athletics site now lists the program with Andy Sinclair as its inaugural head coach.

Galbraith, hired in December 2021, has overseen a steady expansion of the department. Before flag football, Randolph added men’s volleyball, men’s wrestling, women’s wrestling and stunt, a run of growth that has changed the shape of the school’s athletics portfolio in less than five years. The new flag football program extends that same pattern, adding another women’s sport to a Division III department that has been building aggressively.

Sinclair was already inside the program structure when Randolph made the move. On June 1, 2026, he transitioned from his role as the men’s lacrosse coach to become Randolph’s inaugural head coach of women’s flag football and assistant athletic director for operations. That kind of internal promotion gives the new sport a coach who already knows the campus, the athletes and the department’s day-to-day rhythm.

The timing is not random. Women’s flag football has been moving quickly across college athletics, and Randolph is joining that wave rather than waiting for it to crest. The United East Athletic Conference announced on Oct. 23, 2024, that it would sponsor women’s flag football beginning in the 2025-26 academic year, giving the sport another layer of structure at the Division III level. NCAA materials released later show flag football advancing through the emerging sports pathway, with championship status still the next step.

That broader momentum matters for a small college like Randolph. Every added program opens another recruiting lane, another roster to build and another reason for prospective students to look at Lynchburg. In that sense, flag football is not just a new listing on an athletics page. It is part of a larger effort to use women’s sports as a growth engine, while the conference and NCAA machinery around the game keeps moving in the same direction.

The school’s decision also fits the conversation already happening inside the Old Dominion Athletic Conference, where other schools are weighing the sport as well. Randolph has moved first with a formal announcement, a named head coach and a spring 2028 target, putting its flag football program on the calendar as college sports continue to make room for the game.