It’s Reckoning Time

In the world of soccer, athletic success is often dictated by the circumstances of your home address. That’s a realization that Ashlee Fontes, PhD, had when she played for the wildly successful and popular women’s soccer team at Florida State University.

“We have the best program in the country right now in college sports,” she says. “Our girls sit in the stadium. They watch. They dream. But when you look at FSU’s roster, it doesn’t have Tallahassee kids.”

Fontes contends that towns like Tallahassee, which offer idyllic settings in which to live and raise families, have plenty of quality youth recreational sports leagues, but when a young athlete has what it takes to become a collegiate athlete, “there’s a missing component,” she says.

Enter Tallahassee (TLH) Reckoning, the city’s first pre-professional women’s soccer club. Fontes, who has a rich résumé of success in the soccer arena, founded the organization in 2023 to foster the continued growth and development of elite female athletes coming out of area youth soccer leagues, allowing them to train and play at a highly competitive level that provides exposure and recruitment opportunities—without fleeing to Atlanta, Tampa, Orlando, or Jacksonville.

Photo by Larry Novey

So far, the program has done exactly that. The inaugural season concluded with home games that saw the team competing for rankings in the Women’s Premier Soccer League (WPSL, the longest-running amateur women’s soccer league sanctioned by the U.S. Adult Soccer Association) and USL W League (the nation’s premier pre-professional league, which serves as a pipeline between college and professional players). 

“My pathway has always been advocating for girls and women through soccer,” says Fontes, who not only played for five years on FSU’s team but also was a founder of the Washington Spirit pro team and co-founder of the Girls Academy league. She was the first woman of color to serve as president of the United States Coaches Association, and her Nikao Management consultancy helps build and grow soccer leagues, clubs, and teams. “I started the Reckoning with a priority to fill the void in a system that needed changing.”

The organization doesn’t host a formal tryout. Instead, it invites interested athletes to training sessions, where they can jump in without pressure. “That way, we can give them a proper evaluation,” Fontes says.

Most of TLH Reckoning’s athletes are middle and high school–aged girls who want to take their sport to the next level. Practice for the upcoming season began in August. The girls work with top coaches, including Staci Wilson (a gold-medal Olympian for the U.S. National Team), Sascha Filippi (current assistant coach for the U.S. Women’s and Men’s Futsal national team), and Ismael Cotto (technical development coach). The program also offers nutritional guidance through a dietitian and the support of a mental performance coach.

“We look to develop the whole person,” Fontes says. “The end goal is to help these girls realize their dreams.”

Photos by Larry Novey

For some, that may be collegiate or professional play. Others end their sporting career in high school. “That’s not a problem,” Fontes says. “Everything they learn from the character development to the rigor they build reveals resilience. It’s going to help them be successful in life as a happy, healthy human being.”

Fontes is building the organization in a way that she hopes will remove financial barriers for players. Selling tickets is the first step. The goal is sold-out audiences, but the organization needs to sell 3,000 to be sustainable. Business sponsorships and a foundation to support their efforts are another. She is working to build community ownership of the program, offering shares starting at $100.

TLH Reckoning faces the same challenges that any start-up experiences, Fontes says. “The beauty of Tallahassee is also its disadvantage,” she explains. “We sit here in this nice, undisturbed area. At the same time, we’re so disconnected from the landscape of women’s soccer.”

Women’s soccer has gained a tremendous following globally—most notably in the United States, Fontes says. In 1999, the U.S. women’s national soccer team won the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Women’s World Cup in front of a record crowd of 90,000 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena and changed the landscape for women’s soccer in this country. Fontes believes that the growing national interest, paired with the local support of FSU’s women’s soccer, is why TLH Reckoning can forge ahead.

Future plans are what Fontes calls a “grand vision.” She hopes to build a live-work-play sports complex, in collaboration with residential and commercial builders, that will be anchored by a stadium. “It’s something that’s very different for Tallahassee but common across the country,” she says.

Photos by Larry Novey

Fontes has already had interest from FIFA about sending athletes to Tallahassee for off-season training, which gives her hope that “if we build it, they will come.” She dreams of someday bringing a professional women’s soccer team to Tallahassee, as well as opening development opportunities for boys and men. First steps, she says, will be made in 2027 to coincide with the next Women’s World Cup.

“If we can capitalize on the momentum of the World Cup during the summer, then we could kick off our first pro season in the fall,” she says. “That would be ideal.”

Photos by Larry Novey

Name: Charlotte Reynolds

Age: 17

When and why did you join Tallahassee Reckoning?
I joined Tallahassee Reckoning a little over a year ago to help me get better as a soccer player and have new opportunities to play and showcase my abilities.

Prior experience/school teams you participated in: I played at Deerlake Middle School and have played at Chiles High School. I started playing soccer at 3 years old.

Position: Center mid

Favorite part of the game: Competing. I love to compete, and this sport is an excellent way to accomplish that.

Biggest accomplishment:
Playing with the W League team over the summer.

Best lesson on or off the field:
Anything worth doing requires time and effort. If you’re not willing to do something, someone else is.

Who or what inspires you? My love for the game is my inspiration. 

Dreams for the future: Play soccer professionally one day.

Photos by Larry Novey

Name: Mallory Van Leuven

Age: 15 

When and why did you join tallahassee Reckoning?
I joined Tallahassee Reckoning last August because I was looking for a more focused and intense training environment.

Prior experience/school teams you participated In: Before joining Reckoning, I played for ASG. I also play for Maclay School. 

Position: Center forward and winger

Favorite part of the game: My favorite part of soccer is getting to show up every day and compete with my teammates and myself. I love being able to prove to myself that my hard work is paying off.

Biggest accomplishment: My biggest accomplishment in soccer this year has been starting to research and reach out to colleges. This makes me feel accomplished because it was something I did not know much about and was scared to start. However, my coaches this year at the Reckoning have helped explain and give guidelines as to how I should start the process.

Best lesson on or off the field: The biggest lesson I’ve learned from soccer is that you should never be comfortable, and you should always be pushing yourself into difficult situations and challenges.

Goals for the future: My goals for the future are to play soccer in college and continue improving my game each and every day.

Photos by Larry Novey

Name: Kendall Sadberry

Age: 15

When and why did you join Tallahassee Reckoning? I joined Tallahassee Reckoning when I was 13 because I was ready for something bigger. I wanted to push myself harder and be a part of a program that demanded the best from me. The coaches here are amazing; they challenge you and believe in your potential.

Prior experience/school teams you participated in: I’ve been playing soccer since I was about 5, and I’ve been on a school team since middle school at Deerlake. I look forward to playing for Chiles High School.

Position: Forward, outside back

Favorite part of the game: My favorite part of the game is the competitiveness. I like the pressure, the quick decisions, and the challenge of going up against strong players. It keeps me focused and pushes me to get better every time I step on the field.

Biggest accomplishment: My biggest accomplishment so far is winning the 2024 Young Player of the Tournament with TLH Reckoning when I was in eighth grade, playing up in the U20 division. Competing with older players pushed me to step up my game, so earning that recognition meant a lot.

Best lesson on or off the field: The best lesson I’ve learned from soccer is that things don’t always go your way, but it’s how you bounce back that matters. Whether it’s a tough loss or a bad game, I’ve learned to stay positive and keep working hard.

Photo by Dave Barfield

On The Ball

Ashlee Fontes, PhD and force to be reckoned with in women’s soccer, loves Tallahassee. And she’s lived in a lot of places to compare it to.

She was born in Miami to a mother who was a professional Tampa Bay Buccaneers cheerleader and a father who played college football and coached collegiate and professional teams. The family moved a lot. Fontes rattles a list of cities and states to emphasize the point, saying they stayed put in Michigan during her middle and high school years while her father coached for the Detroit Lions. The change wasn’t easy for her or her brother, who is “barely a year older,” she says. Her involvement in athletics saw her through.

“I always tell people that doing sports has the power to change and save lives,” Fontes says. “It has for me so many times. I moved around so much, and I was a shockingly shy kid.”

Describing herself as an “ethnically ambiguous dark-skinned Hispanic,” Fontes remembers having a hard time making friends. In sports, however, she “always felt very safe, alive, and free,” she says.

She earned a scholarship to play on Florida State University’s women’s soccer team as a defensive player, setting records for playing the most minutes and giving up the fewest number of goals. Fontes spent five years at FSU and continued her education at Northeastern University, where she earned her master’s degree in organizational communications and project management. Soccer led her to incredible heights, with play in professional leagues and work in team and league development. She was a founding executive of the Washington Spirit and is credited with being a consequential force in the advancement of women’s soccer in the United States, as well as investing in coaching education at all levels.

“I don’t think we put enough emphasis on how important and critical the coaching role is,” she says. “Kids deserve sports, and sports belong to them. [As a coach], you’re serving a higher purpose. When kids come to practice, you don’t know what they’re going through. This can be an escape or a safe haven that they need.”

Fontes says her parents each influenced her in their own way—she strived to be successful on the field to earn her father’s attention in his busy, travel-heavy schedule but says her mother was her North Star. “She’s just strength and no drama,” Fontes says. “She dared me to dream, encouraged self-accountability, and told me I could always do better. She’s just an amazing human being.”

Fontes uprooted her own family—which includes husband Ryan Comber, college-freshman daughter Reese Fontes-Comber, and son Aiden Fontes-Comber, a high school junior—and returned to Tallahassee in 2017 to pursue her doctorate degree. Seven years later, with PhD affixed to her name, she says the family is here to stay.

“It’s home,” she says. “There’s so much beauty. In Tallahassee, you live to live, you’re not working a rat race, taking a second job to afford a house or a car or to put your kid in their activities. On Saturdays, there are football games, and on Sundays, people still value church.

“This is home,” she repeats. “I’m sitting here with my doctorate and 20 years of connections and resources to the women’s game. And what am I going to do? I’m going to help fill a need.”