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Vol. 38, No. 18
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2-17-2009
By: Julia Harris A rolling revolutionStaffers take aim at roller derbyThe scene is nothing like the angst-ridden, drama-filled roller skating rinks of yore, where sweaty-palmed kids worked hard to muster up the courage for a “couples skate.”
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Coach Caesar’s take
Ryan Caesar, a PhD student in entomology, was the first coach for the Ohio Roller Girls and held the post for almost four years. His wife, known on the circuit as Barracuda, is a member of the all-star team.
“I was into skateboarding and BMX racing as a kid and I like sports in general; I find this one to be just as interesting in terms of strategy, game playing, momentum shifts and intensity as football, hockey and other sports. I love the fact that it’s truly designed for women, in the sense that having a lower center of gravity is a real strategic advantage. I like that the leagues, both locally and at a national level, are run by the skaters. I think it’s a sport that can appeal to anyone who likes really fast-paced, full-contact, team sports, while at the same time it’s not got those untouchable, supreme athletes — these are everyday people who simply have a drive to compete. It’s something you can be a part of, and you can see and interact with the athletes at a level you don’t get with other sports. |
For several Ohio State staff and graduate students, that old image has morphed almost beyond recognition.
For them, roller skating now means roller derby — they compete for the Ohio Roller Girls, the first flat-track roller derby team in the state.
Roller derby is a colorful and fiercely contested sport where the athletes are women with monikers such as Fisti Cuffs or Anna Mossity, and the spicy tradition includes unconventional make-up and attire — fishnet stockings are a not-uncommon wardrobe choice — that give the sport a wide, if underground, appeal.
The game involves two teams of five skaters each, comprising four blockers and one “jammer” who is the sole offensive player. Points are earned when one team’s jammer skates past the opposing team’s skaters. It’s fast-paced, full-contact, highly aggressive action for two 30-minute periods.
The Ohio Roller Girls have roughly 40 skaters in their ranks, at least seven of whom work at Ohio State.
Among them are Amber MacPherson, a laboratory animal health technician, and Amy Spears, assistant director of the Digital Media Project.
Spears said she learned to skate when she was 4 years old and used to harbor dreams of joining a professional skating circuit. Instead, she joined Ohio Roller Girls in February 2006.
“When the sport started, it was more about spectacle. There was a real campy element to it. But it’s really become a true sport and that’s what we want to be seen as,” Spears said. “We practice three, five, sometimes six times a week, plus a scrimmage, and we have games once a month.”
Spears, who goes by the feral name of Alli Catraz when on the track, plays the position called “pivot” that basically sets the pace for the rest of the skaters on her team to follow. Her first choice for a derby name was Penny Tentiary, but it was already taken, according to a master roster of international derby names.
She and MacPherson — whose skate name is Cardinal Sin — both play on the “charter team” or all-star team, which is the team that travels and plays other charter teams from leagues around the country. There are also “home” teams, rather like the junior varsity squads in more traditional high school sports.
No matter which team a player is on, every roller girl is required to pitch in on game days.
Typically that has meant showing up early in the morning at the venue — after a few seasons of jumping around, they’ve finally settled on Central Ohio Roller Hockey in Grandview — to set up the portable track, which arrives on four or five pallets from a storage unit. Ninety minutes — and a lot of tape and some rope — later, the track is in place, sponsorship banners hung and bleachers set up.
And then, they get ready to race.
“At the end of the night, we clean everything up, pull up the track, load it up,” MacPherson said. “It’s a full day of derby — and then there’s the after-game party.”
This do-it-yourself, grassroots aspect of roller derby is one its adherents pride themselves on. For Alina Bennett, a master’s student in women’s studies at Ohio State and a derby referee, roller derby is an expression of modern feminism.
“It definitely lines up politically with my own feminist ideologies,” she said. “It’s 60 women working together to make this thing happen, and there are opportunities for collaboration in this sport that I just don’t see in others.”
All athletes, refs and other support personnel are unpaid, and all athletes also are required to contribute to the Ohio Roller Girls effort in other ways.
“No one’s just a skater,” said MacPherson, who is in charge of sponsorships and is responsible for updating the group’s MySpace page.
Spears and Bennett have dreams of seeing roller derby acquire the kind of legitimacy and professionalism other sports enjoy.
Both anticipate a sea change of new interest in the sport this summer, when the movie “Whip It,” directed by Drew Barrymore, is slated for release. The movie describes a girl’s experience with roller derby and promises to stir up the kind of cult interest that 2004’s “DodgeBall!” did for that sport.
“My hope is that after this movie comes out, then roller derby will end up in the next Olympic Winter Games,” Bennett said. “I mean, if curling is in, are you kidding me? Curling? Come on.”
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