12/15/2004 Hell on wheels: Minnesota RollerGirls are part of a roller derby revival
Kelly Westhoff
Mary Donnelly is the kind of girl that pushes other girls around. "I might knock you down and beat you up. Or sit on you and beat you in the chest. I'll punch you in the arm," she warned, then added, "but not in the face."
Such intimidating words seem contrary to Donnelly's character: petite flowers are stitched into the trim of her soft blue cardigan and an artsy choker with a delicate shell medallion adorns her slim neck. But 27-year-old Donnelly's words are indeed a part of her character‹her roller derby character.
Donnelly has an alter ego. Three nights a week she leaves behind her professional job as a usability consultant making web sites customer-friendly. She leaves her husband and her pretty blue cardigan at home. She dons a helmet, roller skates and a new identity: Head Trauma. Then she takes to the rink with 30 other women to practice the lost sport of roller derby.
As Head Trauma, Donnelly is raucous, rough and rowdy. She is loud. She is fast. She is pushy. She has to be-‹all the other women are too. "We do have fights," Donnelly admitted. "We practice pushing each other down."
The pushing is real, but the animosity is not. In fact, the women Donnelly is pushing around are all members of Minnesota RollerGirls, a self-made, self-proclaimed, all-female roller derby league. And they are part of a national revival of the American-invented sport that first rose to popularity in the 1940s but died out by 1975. All-women roller derby leagues have sprung up in roughly 20 cities across the country including Seattle, Phoenix, Chicago, Denver and Atlanta.
Roller derby, not rugby
An article about women's roller derby in Jane magazine first piqued Donnelly's attention, she said. "It was girls doing something together. It seemed like a cool way to meet people."
A Minnesota native, Donnelly and her husband were living in Los Angeles at the time and planning a move back to the Midwest. She hadn't lived here in years and worried that making new friends would mean starting from scratch. After the move, a brief encounter with an all-girls rugby league left her frustrated. "I thought they would teach me how to play," Donnelly explained, "but instead they were just like, "Why don't you just watch over there?'"
Searching for a social outlet, Donnelly dug up that article from Jane and dove into the world of roller derby. She researched roller derby leagues online and contacted an all-female league in Austin, Texas, for advice on how to start a women's roller derby league here. Some of the Austin derby girls invited Donnelly to a bout, or match, so that she could learn how a league was organized and how a bout was played.
Donnelly convinced two of her sisters to take a road trip to Texas. Once there, women from the Austin league welcomed them into their homes for a weekend. Donnelly and her sisters saw their first roller derby bout. All three were infected with the game. "It was so exciting to watch," Donnelly remembered. "There was a crowd watching of over 1,000 people. And it wasn't about winning or losing, it was just about fun!"
But as Donnelly watched, she wondered at the level of commitment that had gone into organizing the bout. "It was really cool," she explained, "but it was really overwhelming. There were so many people involved in the production, in the event as a whole. And I didn't know the questions to even ask. It was all just so new."
Yet the Austin team continued to offer help via email; they also invited Donnelly to join a Yahoo! email group that connects women's roller derby leagues around the country. Plus, Donnelly now had her first recruits: her sisters.
Local wheels, local girls
When they got home, Donnelly and her sisters created flyers and posters for a local roller derby league. They distributed them at block parties, at work and to friends. Their plan was to drum up interest and hold an informational meeting to see if there was enough excitement to start a league rolling in the Twin Cities.
The first gathering was at the end of August. "About 50 girls showed up to that first event," Donnelly beamed. "I was completely ecstatic!"
Donnelly set about planning a league. "It became my second job, to get it all going. I did it nonstop," she said. "My husband thinks I'm crazy. He's a derby widow," she laughed.
"There were just 12,000 things to do," she explained. "The fundraisers, contact all the gals. I ran all the meetings. And I had to read all this stuff." As testament, she produced a copy of the Minnesota RollerGirls bylaws, outlining each member's attendance, insurance and sportsmanship requirements. Every new member must sign the by-laws and abide by its rules.
For now, the RollerGirls are just practicing and learning the sport. Donnelly hopes the league will have recruited enough skaters by the end of February 2005 that they can break into four teams and begin holding bouts. Ideally, she said, they'd like to have 15 women on a team. Bouts will be open to the public.
A jammin' workout
The RollerGirls skate on a flat track. A flat track is just that‹flat. It does not have banked corners or a sunken center like the tracks used in the old roller derby days. It does consist of a series of oval lines painted on the floor of the Coon Rapids Cheap Skate, their home rink.
Most of the all-female roller derby leagues in the country skate on a flat track. This way, the league does not have to own their track or the building to house it in; they can simply rent time at any typical roller rink. Plus, by learning the game on a flat track, the Minnesota RollerGirls will be able to participate in future cross-state bouts.
For a bout, each team puts five skaters on the track: three blockers, a pivot and a jammer. The blockers from both teams skate together as a pack, the pivot skates in front of the pack, the jammer behind.
Every bout is divided into two fourteen-minute halves. Each half is broken down into two-minute segments called jams. When a whistle blows indicating the start of a new jam, all the skaters start rolling. Each team's jammer tries to skate through the pack of blockers and pass the pivots. Then they try to lap the track and pass the pack again.
For every skater from the other team the jammer passes on the second lap, she earns a point. This is where the pushing begins. A good blocker will keep the opposing jammer from getting through the pack while helping her own jammer pass. The pivot is a team's last line of defense. If the opposing jammer does make it through the pack, the pivot is supposed to take her down.
With all that pushing, someone is bound to get hurt, but ample practice time is devoted to learning how to avoid injury. "If you get hurt," Donnelly explained, "it'll be from falling and not knowing how to fall properly. You don't want to fall on your ass. You want to fall on your knees or do a baseball slide. You don't want to fall backwards. Fall forward."
Besides learning how to fall, the RollerGirls also practice sprinting, starting and stopping on wheels. "People don't realize," Donnelly added, "that this really is a sport. We're actually working out. I used to go to yoga two to three times a week, but this is my workout now."
More than a pretty pair of skates
The girls wear roller skates‹four wheels at four corners. Rollerblades are not allowed. But there's nothing old-fashioned about them: Donnelly custom-built her skates online and paid $200. And the more she learns about roller derby, the more she wants to upgrade her skates. "There are all sorts of different types of wheels. But I want new bearings," she confessed. "My bearings are from Taiwan, but bone bearings from China are better."
Skaters also wear a helmet, mouth guard, knee pads and wrist and elbow guards. The equipment can add up, but Donnelly quickly points out that the league has a group discount at a local sports supply store. And newcomers can rent skates at the rink. First-timers aren't expected to come fully outfitted. The veterans have extra guards and pads they will loan to a woman who wants to give roller derby a try.
One of the fun parts about becoming a full-fledged roller derby member is assuming a new identity. Every roller derby woman in the country has an alter-ego name. And once a name is taken, no other skater can use it. Derby identities become sacred once a skater submits her name to the Yahoo! group.
In addition to Head Trauma, Minnesota RollerGirls include Zsa Zsa the Gore, Chastity Belt, Snake Bite, Bloody Valentine, Joy Ride, Rolls Wilder, Barbie Brawl and Marilyn Monrogue, to name a few. And skaters dress for their parts. Attend a RollerGirls' event and Cruel Ella might arrive with fishnet stockings, a green wig and apple-red lips.
Members' derby identities, Donnelly insisted, are just as varied and creative as their off-rink lives. Most of the skaters are in their twenties and thirties; some are married, others are not. Some of the members are big-boned and sturdy; some are lightweights with speed. "It's all different kinds of girls," Donnelly said. "Some of us are typical nine-to-five girls‹that would be me‹but others aren't. There's a train conductor, PR and advertising girls, a waitress, a bunch that do hair, a print artist, students and a new girl that works at a bakery."
This eclectic gathering of personalities is the best part about being involved in RollerGirls. Donnelly said. "All of a sudden, I have these 30 new friends and we all have this common bond," she added. "These are women I maybe never would have met."
Finally, Donnelly has found an outlet for her energy and a way to make friends. "First I just wanted to skate and play the sport," Donnelly admitted. "But now it's bigger than that. There are all these girls and they are putting their faith in me, in this‹that this is going to go. I want this to work for them, for the community. I want this to work so bad. I'll do anything to get it going."
Could you be a RollerGirl?
The Minnesota RollerGirls are still recruiting new skaters.
Members must be at least 21 years of age.
Members must also make a time commitment: practices are held Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday nights at the Coon Rapids Cheap Skate. Members must agree to attend two practice sessions each week and participate in 50 percent of the league's sponsored events and/or fundraisers every quarter.
A $25 monthly fee is due each month to Coon Rapids Cheap Skate to pay for rink time. Members must supply their own equipment. Donnelly estimated that a new skater could spend between $50-$150 to outfit herself, depending on the quality of products she chooses and what she may already own.
To learn more about the Minnesota RollerGirls, visit www.mnrollergirls.com.
Minnesota RollerGirls
Who are they?An all-female roller derby league committed to showmanship, fierce competition, rock 'n' roll and a mischievous good time.
Who can join?Any gal 21 years of age or older.
What are the rules?There are five members in a match, or bout, and three positions:
Pivot: Sets the pace for the pack and is the last line of defense.
Blocker: Tries to stop the jammer, knocks around the opposing team's blockers.
Jammer: Sprints through the pack, scoring points by passing members of the opposing team.
The pack starts with a pivot from each team in front, three blockers from each team in the middle and a jammer from each team in the back.
When the whistle blows, the pack takes off, and on a second whistle, the jammers start fighting their way through the pack in an attempt to be named "lead jammer." The jammers lap the pack and when they re-enter the pack, they receive one point for each member of the opposing team that they pass.
A jam lasts a maximum of two minutes, but the "lead jammer" has the right to call off the jam at her discretion.
From the Minnesota RollerGirls website, www.mnrollergirls.com.
