'Dry Bones' film explores race, sports and community through Ike Maxwell story

Editor's note: this story has been updated to correct the name of the Greater Cleveland Film Commission. A longtime Elyria resident is finally set to bring the story of Elyria football phenom Ike Maxwell to life on film, after a half a decade of work and a lifetime of hearing the tales of Maxwell, his family and the city that made him. On Feb. 6 filmmaker Tara Conley will hold the first public screening of her film "Dry Bones," which explores not just Maxwell's life and football career, but the realities of sports, community and race that grip Elyria and so many cities like it. Maxwell stands at the center of that story because of his prominence in the community, but also because his younger brother, Daryl Maxwell, was shot in the back and killed by a white Elyria police officer in 1975, kicking off three days of protests and violence that rocked the city. "We focused on that incident in the film and how it impacted Ike's trajectory after that point," Conley said. "He was a rising football star, he was compared to all the greats that came out of Ohio including (former Ohio State and Cincinnati Bengals running back) Archie Griffin. But this incident, along with some other compounding issues that he had, derailed his trajectory." "Dry Bones" will be screened to the public for the first time at Karamu House, 2355 E. 89th St. in Cleveland on Feb. 6. The screening is free and doors will open at 5 p.m. with the screening to begin at 6:30 p.m. and a discussion with the filmmakers to follow. Attendees should register with the Greater Cleveland Film Commission at clevelandfilm.com. Sherman Jones, a community organizer featured in the film asks, "How do you breathe life into dry bones?" — referencing the biblical story of Ezekiel's dry bones. Dynamite Ike By the time of Maxwell's graduation from Elyria High School in 1972, the man they called "Dynamite Ike" had rewritten the school's record books, claiming every game, season and career rushing record possible. He capped his illustrious career by leading the Pioneers — behind the blocking of eventual National Champion college football coach Les Miles, among others — to an undefeated season in 1971. That season saw Maxwell named an All-American and winning the Golden Helmet as the best football player in Lorain County. It also led to football scholarship offers from across the country, including from the University of Miami, where Maxwell chose to attend. But Miami did not work out for Maxwell, and eventually neither did a career in football, as Maxwell transferred to the University of Akron before returning to Elyria. Shortly after Ike's return from college, his family and his city would be thrown into chaos when his younger brother, 19-year-old Daryl Maxwell, was shot in the back by a white police officer in August 1975 as he fled after stealing change from The Mayfair Bar. Racial tensions in the city, already high, exploded after Daryl's death, as Black Elyrians protested for three days, and riots and alleged fire bombings erupted on the evening of the second day. Conley said that Maxwell was in Elyria during this uprising, and recounted in the film having a gun pointed at him that night. Authorities eventually deemed the shooting to be a justifiable homicide. The Maxwell family received a settlement of $12,000 for Daryl's death, Conley said. The years that followed were no easier on Maxwell, nor the city. In 1980, Ike was beaten with a baseball bat and had his skull was cracked. A few months later he was shot and badly wounded. For its part, Elyria began to see the factories that had powered its economy for generations pack up and leave, placing even more pressure on the racial issues and other inequities that had been allowed to fester below the surface more than ever after Daryl's killing. Maxwell eventually fell into a cycle of substance abuse, crime and arrest that is all too familiar in every town in America, but Conley said the city that he had electrified never gave up on him. "The Black community, particularly people who went to high school with Ike or the Maxwells, I get a sense that they have always been very protective of Ike, and rightfully so," Conley said. Conley said part of the reason she felt drawn to Maxwell's story was that she felt that prior tellings, namely a 2012 article in The New York Times by Dan Barry titled "In the Hard Fall of a Favorite Son, a Reminder of a City's Scars," failed to capture the extent to which Elyria rallied around its one-time star. Conley was born in Oberlin but spent most of her childhood in Elyria before her family moved to Solon. She knew Elyria well, and had heard many stories about the city and Maxwell throughout her life, as her mother, Brenda Conley, was a classmate of Maxwell's. Her connection only became more personal as she sat with Ike, his family and many more Elyrians of that generation throughout the process of making the film. "She went to high school with the Maxwells, so when I came across the 2012 New York Times article on Elyria and Ike, I remember reading it and sharing it with her," Conley said. "Her response was, it just didn't seem right to her. That article felt (to her) like it was just not done in the right way. It was a very personal story for her, because she knew about Ike and everything that was going on at the time. So I guess that kind of piqued my interest in the story." From story to film Conley, currently an assistant professor in the school of media and journalism at Kent State University, began work on the film that would become "Dry Bones" in 2022 while teaching at Montclair State University in New Jersey. From the start, she had the help of one of her graduate students, Sean Arnold, who would become the film's co-producer. "He has been with me the whole time," Conley said. "We have been working for a very long time on this film conceptually and then, of course, implementing it and now we are at the screening phase." Upon diving into the story herself, Conley said that she felt that Barry had missed in his story just how extensively the community has cared not just about, but for Maxwell in the decades since his high school gridiron glory. "The New York Times article didn't quite capture what I hope the film captures, and that really speaks to the community coming together across all demographics, racial demographics especially," Conley said. "... The article kind of painted the white community as just these folks who were sort of around Ike, but I think there is something much deeper there. Folks love Ike, they love what he did for the city. He gave the city, and especially the Black community here, hope." Conley added that she hoped her film worked to return some of Maxwell and his family's agency and voice into their own story, arguing that it had been left out of prior coverage. "Ike is a brilliant person, and I also think that that didn't quite get through in the New York Times article..." she said. "When I talked to Ike throughout the filming, you get a sense that you just have to sit with him to understand what he's actually saying. He did have a brain injury, so it sounds like he's just shouting into the wind. And I think Dan Barry's article in The New York Times sort of kind of characterized it that way. … but I think, again, if you sit with him and listen to his stories, he has a lot to say. He has a memory bank." Tara, a 1999 Solon High School graduate, played basketball and was a state champion in the long jump, so she sympathized with the pressure placed on Maxwell as a football star, both by his community and himself. She said that she hoped the film would encourage parents and communities to be more careful in how they pressure and support young athletes, and to refocus high school sports as a means of bringing a community together. In addition to years of interviews, Conley had personally created miniature models of Ely Stadium in Maxwell's day as well as downtown Elyria, on which she animated a reenactment of the riots that followed Daryl Maxwell's killing. "The experience was so cathartic and expressive," Conley said. "I intend to keep working with miniatures in documentary film going forward." "Dry Bones" will also feature music from the 1970s sourced from Boddie Recording Company in Cleveland to portray what Maxwell and his community would have been listening to at the time. While Ike himself will be unable to attend the preview, Conley said she hopes that the members of the community that has supported him come to see her telling of his story. The screening is a part of the Greater Cleveland Film Commission's fifth annual Film Forward Documentary Spotlight, and as a part of the spotlight Conley will also hold a workshop on documentary filmmaking at the Kent State College of Podiatric Medicine, 6000 Rockside Woods Blvd. N. in Independence at 10 a.m. on Saturday. Signups for both the screening and the workshop can be found through www.drybonesfilm.com or directly at www.clevelandfilm.com. Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.