Friday, February 25, 2011

Falling Hard for Roller Derby

It’s pretty easy to get excited about roller derby.  Even the name is a blast to say, bubbling up with edgy fun.  When I heard rumors last spring that women were launching a roller derby league here in the Bend, I didn’t have to look far to find that fans were already gathering on a South Bend Roller Girls’ Facebook page, with its teasing tag line, “We know … we can’t wait, either!”

The timing couldn’t be better for the inspirational distraction of roller derby, given our toxic political climate and the lingering sting of Newsweek’s slap that South Bend is a “dying city.” In the face of this gloom, the success of the South Bend Roller Girls is a jolt of dizzy joy.

The South Bend derby league, like a much-anticipated baby, started about a year ago as a twinkle in the eye of Heather Planert and Shannon Hoyte – derby names “Fraidy Krueger” and “Hoytie Toity” – who posted a Facebook status about interest in a local derby league.  That post garnered about 800 responses, resulting in the league’s current 54 active skaters, who are skillfully trained in flat-track derby.

I brought my teenage daughters and their pals to the South Bend Roller Girls’ first match in late January – an intra-league bout on a deeply snowy Thursday night that still drew many hundreds of eager viewers, and turned away a hundred more.  I can’t remember seeing a wider range of people gathered for anything in South Bend – ever.  We stood in line with a friendly crowd that made one daughter wonder “where South Bend had been hiding all the cool people,” because we were suddenly surrounded by the eccentrically bearded, the ironically pig-tailed, the gorgeously tattooed and pierced, and hipster twenty-somethings with retro eyeglasses and fedoras.  I felt pretty Plain Jane in my fleece hat and parka, but when I broadened my view, I could see there were lots of other mid-life types wearing wool coats … and biker leather. And then I noticed all the smiling grandparents, and younger folks with toddlers on their hips and wide-eyed grade-schoolers grasped by their mittens, our breath merging in clouds of excitement in the frosty night.

Inside, USA Skate roller rink was steamy-warm, dark and neon-sparked, and jammed from polished track to lockers with happy spectators.  We settled in next to a little buzz-headed boy celebrating his 6th birthday with his mom.  On our other side were grandparents with primly folded hands and wide smiles, who were next to a four-pack of wired middle-school boys with Bieber-worthy bangs.  In front of us was the pre-school aged, static-haired and visibly sticky cheering section of one of the jammers, Candi-Land Massacre, whose multigenerational fans sported the same painted-on glitter-pink eye-mask that she wore as part of her costume.  And then there was the kaleidoscope of other skaters – women of all sizes and attitudes, ages 19-43, who in their other lives are bank tellers, teachers, bus drivers, graphic designers, cancer-research fund-raisers, and office workers. Lined up and ready to skate, though, with glitter shorts and rainbow tights, serious black kneepads and crayon-bright mouthguards, and helmets covered with their cheeky derby names and stickers that said things like, “Roller derby saved me” – well, it was easy to believe they could do anything.  These women are every-day super heroes – the better-faster-stronger version of ourselves that any of us might aim for. 

And they ARE superheroes on the track. Leaving behind the performative violence of the sport’s early days, the bout we saw was fueled by skill and speed with heaps of goodwill, as jammers zoomed their way through the pack of determined blockers, all under the governance of strict rules.  One firecracker of a jammer, Ginger Snapped, is a young woman I know two mornings a week as an earnest student in my college classroom, but that night she was a flash of red hair and chutzpa, dazzling the crowd with zig-zags and a full-of-fun grin.  Another jammer kept checking in with her kids between jam sessions, swigging water from a recycled milk jug and murmuring to them, “Gimmee kissy –be good!  No, I can’t hold you just now, baby – I gotta get back out there!”

In a political moment when people worldwide are rebelling against top-down rule, it felt great to be among women and men who run a grass-roots “by the skaters, for the skaters” organization, sharing responsibility for a non-profit league committed to fund-raising for local charities. When skaters playfully shouted to the kids in the crowd, “Do you want to grow up to be a derby girl?” I could feel such optimism for what’s next – an age when women’s strength and humor and skill and camaraderie are celebrated by every corner of our community.

And, sure, skaters get knocked down, but like any ordinary superheroes – like any of us, when we summon our better selves— they get back up again .  Which is why the teenagers in my crowd begged me to play this song right … now. [Music: “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba]

Broadcast by April Lidinsky on February 25, 2011 • WVPE's Audio Archive
Arts & Entertainment • Community • Sports & Recreation • Women & Men • Permalink • Printer Friendly
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