You could say Oakland football runs in Dom Stewarts’ blood. Raised in Oakland by a family with Raiders season tickets, early photos show her dressed in team gear even as a baby. One of Stewart’s vivid childhood memories is of one time at the Coliseum when the referee blew a call that went against the Raiders and the crowd erupted in a chant that was about, well, bovine feces. Just 10 years old, little Dom looked around, clocked what was expected of her as a fan, and joyously joined in. 

Stewart loved to play pickup football games growing up. She excelled in athletics in high school and eventually competed in Division 1 track and field at UC Riverside. But back in 2006, when she started ninth grade at Skyline High School, she didn’t have the opportunity to follow her passion onto the gridiron, and ended up a star sprinter instead. 

What a difference a couple decades make. This winter, Stewart is donning a helmet and pads to practice football on that same Skyline High football field, the field where legendary coach John Beam once built champions, with her teammates on the Golden State Storm, the professional women’s tackle football team that launches its inaugural season on March 28. 

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Stewart first learned about the existence of women’s professional football a little over a year ago, when she received a text message from someone with the Nevada Storm, a team in the Women’s Football Alliance, founded in 2009 with 36 teams. She spent a busy but joyous season driving from Oakland to Reno to play running back, while juggling a day job as a data analyst and a side job coaching track, distance running and flag football at Skyline. When the Golden State Storm launched, Stewart jumped at the chance to switch teams and play for her hometown.

Dom Stewart had played for the Nevada Storm in a rival league. She has joined the Golden State Storm as a running back for the teamʻs inaugural season. Credit: Grace Navarro

The Golden State Storm are the latest expansion team in the Women’s National Football Conference, a rival league founded in 2018 by Odessa Jenkins, a former player and coach with ambitions of growing women’s professional tackle football to scale in visibility and revenue. Until that vision is realized, the growth of the league, which now has 16 teams, relies on the passion of football fans who donate their time and talent. For now, none of the players, coaches or staff on the Storm are paid by the team, though players earn income through individual sponsorships and a share of ticket and jersey sales. But it is the love of the game that is the main draw, and the Storm has lured players to the Bay Area from as far away as Germany. 

While the financial circumstances are starkly different, the game play follows the same rules as the NFL, with 11 players per side attempting to gain or prevent progress toward the endzone, 10 yards at a time. Storm head coach Dallas Hartwell has had the occasional opportunity to coach individual female players during his decade-plus career as a high school football coach in Nebraska and California, but he said that coaching an all-women team is different. “I’m impressed,” Hartwell said of his Storm players. “Once you tell them something, they understand it. They want more time, more coaching, more film.”

The Golden State Storm will play their home games at Laney College, where they hope to carry on the legacy of Beam, who as athletic director there was instrumental in securing that location for them. The team will wear a decal with his initials on their helmets in his honor. Beam “welcomed us with open arms,” said Jake Langer, one of the Storm’s co-owners and investors. “He was an advocate for us to play [at Laney] and for women to play football.” 

While Langer lives in Los Gatos, and fellow co-owner Brad Grovich now lives in Bel Air, Maryland, the pair chose Oakland as their team’s home because of their interactions with Beam and because of Oakland’s legendary sports fandom, as demonstrated by the love the Town has shown for the Oakland Ballers and Oakland Roots. “We are hopefully following in the footsteps,” Langer said.

The Golden State Storm at practice. Credit: Anne Marks for The Oaklandside

After the departure of the NFL’s Raiders to Las Vegas — and a decision by the IFL’s Bay Area Panthers to play in San Jose instead of Oakland — the Storm will be the first professional tackle football team to play in Oakland since 2019. “We want to reignite football on this side of the bay,” said Devonya O’Dubhda, a spokesperson for the Storm. “We want to get deep down establishing our roots in Oakland.”

Tickets are on sale now for the six-game 2026 season (including three home games), with the opener at Laney Field on March 28. The team is planning for an engaging, family-friendly game day experience, with half-time performances by local flag football teams and a “fifth quarter” that creates opportunities for fans to interact with the players. There will also be vendors selling food and drink — including alcoholic beverages — at the stadium. 

Stewart said that “everyone is gonna be hyped” for that first game, including her Raiders-crazy family and friends, and the athletes she coaches on the Skyline High track team, who know her as Coach Stew. “You will definitely hear them before you see them,” she said.

The season opener will be just the beginning for the Storm. In addition to tackle football, they, like other WNFC teams, will also field a flag football team that will play in regional tournaments. With women’s and men’s flag football making their official debut as an Olympic sport at the 2028 games in Los Angeles, interest in the sport is growing.

Footballs on the field at a Storm practice. Credit: Matt Ramos

Langer and Grovich each said their own interest in women’s football began with their daughters playing flag football. “Most people don’t know that women play professional tackle football,” Langer said. “A year ago, Brad and I didn’t know that.” They said they became investors because they want  to close football’s gender gap.

The WNFC’s official nonprofit partner, Got Her Back, supports girls and women in football through camps, clinics, “body-confident” coaching curriculum, mentorship of players and coaches, and small grants to help female athletes purchase needed equipment and supplies. They recently held a girls football clinic at Oakland Tech on February 7, that drew nearly 200 young players during Super Bowl week.

“I can’t describe how happy I am,” Stewart said. “To just have football in Oakland is exciting. To be part of that legacy, it’s a dream come true. Being from Oakland, watching the Raiders growing up, and now the next generation gets to watch me.”

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