For working out, some girls like to jog on a treadmill in a temperature-controlled environment. Other girls prefer a take-no-prisoners pseudo-brawl to make them sweat.
Roller derby is a sport that has been growing. With the recent release of the movie Whip It, the sport is steadily gaining more exposure as well as the local roller derby team, the Carolina Roller girls.
Beth Reed, Carolina Rollergirls marketing director and known on the track as Beth Row, said the Rollergirls have been around since 2004.
“Celia Fate attended a bout in Austin, Texas in the fall 2003 and decided she wanted to bring roller derby back to the City of Oaks. So we can credit Celia with the founding of the Carolina Rollergirls,” Reed said, noting that Fate is still active today.
Reed got into roller derby in Wilmington, playing with the Cape Fear Roller Girls before playing with the Carolina Rollergirls.
“I was watching the news one night and they had a segment on the Cape Fear Rollers Girls. I thought it looked fun and I needed a new hobby,” Reed said. “I thought that I had remembered being a good skater as a kid. Boy, was I wrong! It’s a lot harder when you are taller and carry around more weight!”
Reed said roller derby is a fast-paced and exciting game of strategy on skates where participants have to play both offense and defense at the same time.
“Two teams of five players each compete in two-minute periods, called jams, to see who can get their scorer into position to make the most points. The scorer, called the jammer, scores a point for every opposing team member that she passes legally,” Reed said.
She draws a parallel to ladies’ football on skates without an actual ball.
Derby is notorious for various injuries, and Reed is no exception.
“I’ve sat out for most of the year due to injuries. I think I just break easily though,” Reed said.
The worst incident was when she broke her leg right before her first game in February 2009, so she couldn’t compete.
“That was horrible; I was heart-broken. Then about six weeks ago, I broke my wrist. I think my team would like to have me wrapped in bubble-wrap,” Reed said.
For those interested in getting started with roller derby, Reed said the first thing to do is to get comfortable on skates. She suggests attending to the Rollergirls’ speed skating sessions at the Skate Ranch on Wednesdays and Fridays.
“If you are already comfortable on skates, come to tryouts and then if you pass, you should attend as many practices as you can. We have five a week, including the two speed skate sessions,” Reed said. At practices, team members learn to improve their skills, such as falls, stops and turns. The team then holds assessments to test these skills. Once a team member passes the test, they’re able to scrimmage.
The last test before a team member can play in a game, called a bout in derby parlance, is pack abilities.
“This just makes sure you are safe on skates and safe when you fall so you don’t hurt yourself or someone else,” Reed said. “In addition to the physical tests, you’ll need to pass a basic rules test. Once you have completed this series of events, you are eligible to play on a team for the Carolina Rollergirls.”
Reed said the team has a pretty good range of experience.
“We have girls who are looking to make tryouts in January coming to our open speed skate practices to get more comfortable on skates. Then we also have people who just look like they were born to be on skates like Kitty Crowbar and DVS,” Reed said.
Reed said one thing spectators might not pick up on is that derby is a lot of hard work.
“I know when I first watched the Carolina Rollergirls, they made it look easy. It takes a lot of time and dedication, but it is definitely worth it,” Reed said.
Getting a fun name is a traditional part of the sport. Kathleen Holm, a third-year Ph.D. student in biomathematics, goes by Roxxy Slide in derby bouts. Holm had a friend who participated in roller derby in Arizona who got her into it after watching a few bouts.
“It comes from when I was on a home team called the Copper Queens. We were a team of copper-mining women,” Holm said. Holm’s name comes from the rock slide, with part of her origin story being that she was born from the rocks.
“[Skating] turned out to be great exercise and helped relieve the stress that comes with hitting and being hit,” Holm said, citing the workout for cardio and her legs. She also skates for the friendship and being part of the team.
Holm has been skating for three years, skating two years in Raleigh and one year in Arizona. She practices three to four times a week for one to two hours at a time.
“Pretty much all I do is roller derby and school,” Holm said. “All the time that I’m not doing roller derby is time when I’m in the library and getting stuff done for school.”
The balancing act gets to be a challenge when she has a game coming up. Practices have attendance requirements.
“I feel a lot more pressure to choose roller derby over school when it’s a couple weeks before a game,” Holm said. The Carolina Rollergirls play about one game a month and about 10 games per year. More than half are home games. Holm doesn’t go to all the away games, depending on her school schedule.
The positions Holm has played are blocker and jammer. She has tried other positions as well.
“We try to get everybody to try each position, and then we choose from there depending on who works where the best,” Holm said.
Holm’s worst injury came when she partially tore a ligament in her knee.
“It ended up healing on its own, but it took about six weeks,” Holm said. Happening about a month before the bout, she missed the first game she would have had in Arizona. Holm hasn’t had any major injuries in the past year.
Reed hopes the recent Drew Barrymore-helmed film Whip It will bring a surge of interest to the sport.
“We were out at five theaters around the area to promote ourselves along with the movie. [We went to] Mission Valley, Crossroads Cary, Streets of Southpoint, North Hills and Raleigh Grande,” Reed said.
She said there were also a few more girls at tryouts that hadn’t heard of the team before.
“We are hoping for an even larger crowd at our upcoming charity bout on Nov. 21 at Dorton Arena. We know the more people that see it live, the more fans, skaters and volunteers we will have. People just fall in love with derby,” Reed said.
Within the film itself, Reed was surprised at the accuracy of it, although she thinks a lot of other derby girls would disagree.
“The movie talks about the jammers being the only ones to score points, the jammers not being able to score on their first pass through the pack. The things that are not accurate were the blatant hits like the choreographed elbows or punching girls in the face,” Reed said. She also notes the Rollergirls’ league is also different because they play on a flat track as opposed to a banked one.
“It embellished the violence, probably to make it appealing to the audience,” Holm said. She said it was accurate in terms of the sport bringing people together with spirit of the team and the subsequent community it builds.
“I think the one thing that all derby girls can agree on is [that] we know exactly how Whip It’s main character] Babe Ruthless felt when she was trying to defend playing roller derby to her mom. She said, ‘I am in love with this,'” Reed said.
