Members of the co-ed Carson Victory Rollers lunged on skates, rode backward, and practiced coming to screeching stops on the basketball court. This was one of three weekly practices at the Carson City Community Center. Unlike most team sports, they practice how to hit each other and fall — the correct way.
Team member Ed Park instructed the skaters to roll onto one shoulder first if they land on the ground to avoid injury and get back up quickly.
“Something that we don’t work on as much as we should is not only hitting people but receiving a hit,” Park said. “How do you take a hit? How do you fall without getting injured? When you get hit and you land on a sticky floor, you don't skid, you splat.”
The highly physical contact sport doesn’t involve a ball or a puck. There are two teams of five, with four blockers and one jammer. The blockers try to stop the jammer from passing them. Each time the jammer laps a player on the other team, they get a point. Skaters use their bodies to hit or block other skaters.
Stone Cold Stunner, known off the track as Tabatha Hughes, said getting hit is more of an inconvenience, and sometimes it hurts.
“But that’s kind of secondary. It’s like, ‘Oh, great. Now I have to get up and get back to where I was. Hitting people, that’s my favorite part of this whole thing,” Stone Cold Stunner said.
Skaters never go by their real names. Each has a unique derby name.
“It is a part of your identity. Maybe you like “Doctor Who,”
or you like “Star Wars,” and you want to represent that. I love wrestling. I'm Stone Cold Stunner,” she said.
Atom Bomb Baby, aka Mandy Posey, joined the Carson Victory Rollers in 2018. This is her first team sport. Roller derby provided this stay-at-home mom of two the opportunity to get out of the house.
“A lot of the time I don’t do things for myself and Derby is for me,” Atom Bomb Baby said. “This is my time to socialize with other adults, get a workout, and take some frustrations out.”
The COVID-19 pandemic put the brakes on roller derby when physical contact was not allowed. And some teams have been slow to recover.
“We tried to set up trail skates and like work on this in your kitchen,” Atom Bomb Baby said. “Then finally when the gym was open, we weren't allowed to make contact, so we were just practicing weaving around cones and doing footwork. Oh my God, my feet were so tired. I was like, ‘Can we please just hit each other?’ ”
Roller Derby started out as an endurance-type marathon and grew in popularity during theGreat Depression because tickets to the sport were cheap. Colleen English, an associate professor of kinesiology at Penn State Berks, researches women’s access to sports. She said that although roller derby started as a sport for men and women, it’s now overwhelmingly female.
“They (women) were a big draw as it became a television fad in the 50s, 60s, and 70s,” English said. “They’re some of the most famous skaters, some of the people who really draw in the crowds.”
English said modern roller derby culture is typically described as DIY, grassroots, and feminist.
“It’s there for women to participate in, to take leadership roles in, coaching roles, organizational roles,” she said.
The sport has experienced highs and lows over the last century. For example, it struggled to stay afloat in the 1970s due to high gas prices. There was a resurgence in the early 2000s, according to Margot “Em-Dash” Atwell, the author of “Derby Life: A Crash Course in the Incredible Sport of Roller Derby.”
“Modern roller derby was restarted in Austin, Texas by a group of women who really infused it with a sort of like punk rock riot girl attitude,” Atwell said, “There’s this very DIY for the skaters, by the skaters mentality to it versus the older version of roller derby had an owner, and the players were employees.”
Now, there are more than 2,000 amateur roller derby leagues in the world.
Back on the basketball court with the Carson Victory Rollers, Park encouraged the skaters not to hold back as they ram into each other. The skaters don’t need to be told twice.
“This is a test of character. It’s also a test of your physical strengths and your ability to control your emotions,” Park said. “But primarily and fundamentally, it really is a test of your character.”
