Holy goalie!

• Jax great Dallas Eliuk doffs padding for cape and tights to let his alter ego out to play

By jason vondersmith

The Portland Tribune, Jan 11, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

KATIE HARTLEY / TRIBUNE PHOTOS

Dallas Eliuk has collected Batman and Spiderman figures, art and comic books since he was a boy in Vancouver, British Columbia. “My first spoken word was ‘Batman,’ ” he says.

The geekdom of Dallas Eliuk can be traced back to his childhood, watching Adam West play Batman on television and reading DC Comics about the Caped Crusader.

Today, it’s displayed in Eliuk’s thousands of collectibles and his own alter ego.

Philanthropist Bruce Wayne by day, superhero by night – that’s Batman.

Eliuk works in community relations by day and wears a mask as goalie for the Portland LumberJax lacrosse team by night. He says the symbolism of the one-man-against-the-world mentality does not escape him.

“Batman’s a regular person with a dark vigilante side. He renders his own justice,” says Eliuk, the National Lacrosse League’s all-time greatest goalie who leads the Jax against New York on Saturday (7:30 p.m., Rose Garden).

Eliuk says other superheroes don’t do as much for him. Superman is less appealing because “he’s indestructible,” and the Incredible Hulk simply displays unbridled strength.

Growing up in Vancouver, British Columbia, Eliuk says, “my first spoken word was ‘Batman.’ ”

His first Batman comic book, dated December 1967, features Catwoman and Batwoman quarreling over the superhero on the cover. Today, Eliuk, 43, can chuckle trying to read into things.

“Maybe that’s the other fascination – he’s always surrounded by strong women,” he says.

Eliuk met his match in his new bride, Daria O’Neill, a radio personality with 105.1 “The Buzz.” As their relationship took off, Eliuk broached the subject of Batman – and Spiderman, since Eliuk isn’t naive enough to think that only one superhero saves the world. Sunday cartoons told him that.

Eliuk couldn’t believe that O’Neill loved comic books and superheroes, too. This sort of thing just doesn’t happen with women, he thought. It had been such a “big issue” with his ex-wife.

‘I’m Batman, I’m Batman!’

Eliuk and O’Neill began exchanging Batman lines all day, with Eliuk yelling the occasional Commissioner Gordon classic: “He gave us a signal!”

They got engaged. They emerged from their Northeast Portland home for parties last Halloween – Eliuk dressed as Batman and O’Neill as Cheetah. Eight days later, Batman re-emerged with Catwoman at his side for a comic book show at Memorial Coliseum.

It was Eliuk’s first public appearances in Portland as Batman, but not the first time the chiseled pro athlete had donned the mask, cape, tights, boots and gloves and said, “I’m Batman.” (His ex-wife actually made most of the costume.)

Every so often, Eliuk will open up the closet door and emerge from the Batcave as Batman just for some private kicks and giggles – “generally at my insistence,” O’Neill says. “It’s fun – I don’t know how to describe it without painting a debauched picture.”

Eliuk wouldn’t comment on whether Catwoman or Cheetah makes an appearance at the same time.

Coincidentally, their dogs, a 10-year-old terrier named Pinkie and a 15-year-old pinscher named Tyke, have pointed ears like bats, not due to plastic surgery.

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