Get in the Game

Dallas women's football team tackles new strategy on and off the field

The Dallas Elite took on the Houston Power on May 6.

Photo courtesy of Dallas Elite

Growing up in a strict military household in San Diego, Devon Goldsmith’s father didn’t let her watch football on television. Now at age 34, she's on the gridiron several times a week as a linebacker and running back for the Dallas Texas Elite women’s football team.

Dallas Elite, formed in 2014, is part of the nine-year-old national Women’s Football Alliance. It's one of 65 teams competing around the country this season, from April through the championship game in July in Atlanta.

Dallas Elite took home that championship trophy in 2017, beating Boston Renegades, 31-21. But then, faced with ownership struggles last fall, the team split up.

In February, new leadership got the team on the field again. Now owner Maria Spencer, along with new co-owners LynMarie Liberty-Ellington and Mike Ellington, are rebuilding the organization and spreading the word that Dallas women's football is alive and well.

They’ve recruited new players, formed partnerships with community organizations, have plans to add a dance team to help cheer on the games, and are using the hashtag #beElite to shine a spotlight on a sport that has struggled for attention.

Home games are played at the massive Prestonwood Christian Academy campus in Plano, and tickets are just $10 per person ($12 at the door). The team would like to get more than its usual 250 to 350 people in the stands.

“To me, women's football encompasses female empowerment at its fullest," says Liberty-Ellington. "Women get to play a sport they were always told was only for boys, and women's football is probably the only sport that embraces women of all shapes and sizes.”

The Ellingtons have successful track record as previous owners of the Lonestar Mustangs, the Tulsa Eagles, and Little Rock Wildcats. As a former WFA champion herself, Spencer says she wants “to see women’s football reach the masses."

To help reach the masses in Dallas, the team is expanding its community outreach efforts. For instance, it has partnered on a raffle with Lancer Legacy Ranch, a support organization for veterans. Raffle ticket sales will help the ranch secure needed tools for its workshop, while the Elite will get money to help defray travel costs.

Players on Dallas Elite don't earn salaries. In fact, they each paid $500 to be on the team this season, and owners cover many expenses and travel costs. Most players are professionals with day jobs, from a barber and a bodybuilder, to teachers and business women.

Games and the practices are a family affair, with players and coaches often bringing their little ones to practices, which take place two to three times a week.

Goldsmith works as an IT business analyst. She has played football for 15 years, two of them with the Elite, and loves it. The game, she says, isn’t just about running around and taking down the opponent.

“It’s really more than that,” she says. “It’s like protecting your family. It’s a really big deal.”

Lauren Chesley, 33, a disability liaison by day who joined the team last year, says she thinks more awareness of women's football would encourage girls to play the game in middle school and high school.

“Especially with contact sport, a lot of people have a hard time wrapping their minds around women doing it,” she says. “It’s hard for people to understand that you can be beautiful and strong and nice, and be aggressive at the same time.”

But that's what the players on Dallas Elite do when they take the field.

“It’s a lot of fun,” says Chesley. “We play the sport how it’s meant to be played, not modified or anything. It’s straight-up football.”

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The next Dallas Elite game, against the Kansas City Titans, takes place at 7 pm May 19 at Prestonwood Christian Academy.

sports

Movie Review

Safe cracking is a snap for White Lotus alum Leo Woodall in Tuner

Photo courtesy of Black Bear

Leo Woodall in Tuner.

Of all the ways that movies depict people trying to steal money and other valuables, safe cracking is among the least exciting. By design, it’s a laborious process that only those with a very certain set of skills can do. While clever editing and the right music can enhance scenes of safes being cracked, there’s a reason that the method is among the least used in heist films.

In the new film Tuner, Niki (Leo Woodall) has a job and a condition that just happens to lend itself well to committing that specific crime. He works as an apprentice piano tuner for Harry (Dustin Hoffman), usually doing the hard work while Harry schmoozes the client. Niki is well-suited for the job because he has a rare condition called hyperacusis, which makes him both sensitive to loud noises and able to hear subtle things that others cannot.

When he runs across a trio of criminals trying to break open a safe at a house where he’s tuning a piano, he helps them more out of frustration than avarice. But when Harry goes into the hospital and racks up huge bills, Niki decides to join the group to make some quick money. They soon want more than he’s willing to give, and he must find a way to extricate himself from them without losing himself completely.

Written and directed by documentary filmmaker Daniel Roher (making his narrative feature debut) and co-written by Robert Ramsey, the film has a nice pace to it despite there being relatively little action. Roher and Ramsey spend the first third or so establishing Niki, Harry, and Harry’s wife Marla (Tovah Feldshuh) as characters, letting the audience understand their relationships and how they interact with each other.

The time they devote to the personal storytelling pays dividends when Niki starts to descend into crime, as his divided loyalties - not to mention the danger of the thefts - insert tension into the plot. That stress is heightened even more when Niki starts a relationship with piano student Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), as getting closer to her necessitates a series of lies.

There comes a point, though, where the plot stagnates to a degree. Niki’s end goal, if he has one, is never clear, and it’s obvious that it’s only a matter of time before things start to fall apart. After starting strong in their character development, Roher and Ramsey take shortcuts as the film rushes toward its conclusion. This is most notable in a weird argument scene between Niki and Ruthie that comes out of nowhere and seems to serve no purpose in the story.

Woodall, who had a memorable turn in season 2 of The White Lotus, is on the cusp of breaking out, and this understated-but-compelling lead role should help him become an even bigger name in Hollywood. Hoffman has a small role, but he remains as interesting as ever despite the lack of screentime. Liu (Bottoms) is also an up-and-coming actor who should become a star with more roles like this one.

Tuner is a low-key thriller that succeeds because of the way the filmmakers approach the under-used method of robbery. Even if it doesn’t quite reach its potential, the film maintains a high quality throughout thanks to its storytelling and acting.

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Tuner is now playing in theaters.

movies film