Roller derby changed the way USC professor Leah Miller thinks about pain.
“It’s remarkable how much we don’t feel it. The adrenaline, the excitement — You don’t have time to think about how much that fall hurt,” she said.
She may go home sweaty and covered in bruises, but she is the most comfortable when she’s laced up in her skates.
As USC alumnus Traci Norwood, or “Bellatrixter,” described it, roller derby is “football on wheels with less padding.” Each team’s jammer scores points during a bout — or a match — by circling the court without being knocked down by the opposing team’s blockers. Although roller derby dates back to the ’30s, its revival in 2001 created the sport we have today.
There are 329 full-member leagues in the world certified by the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association — or WFTDA — and hundreds of teams internationally that have yet to become official members. As of Oct. 4, 2015, the Columbia QuadSquad Rollergirls are number 38 in the world, and they worked hard to get there.
Since the team started in 2009, it has grown from a tight knit group of women to an elaborate organization consisting of over 40 active skaters, coaches, one dedicated ref and a junior team, for skaters ages nine to 17 years old. Columbia is also the home to two other roller derby teams: the Richland County Regulators and the men’s league, the Carolina Wrecking Balls.
CQS has skaters from all walks of life — nurses, mothers, lawyers, scientists, students and even professors hit the court during bouts. Miller, or “Dani Dynamite,” is a Spanish professor at USC, as well as a proud, dedicated rollergirl.
According to her, it’s not weird going from the classroom to the track, because she’s “a boss lady even there.” In the past, she’s been the head of public relations, executive director, training coordinator and head of bout production. Now she’s the league’s WFTDA representative.
“I’m not very good at saying no to leadership positions, so really, there’s nothing that changes about me in either situation,” she said. “I just speak less Spanish there.”
Any seasoned rollergirl will have injury stories — getting beat up on the track is part of the sport.
In the midst of squealing whistles and shouting across the rink, there’s more damage than just a bruise here or there. It’s not uncommon to see broken ankles, noses and collarbones, along with a laundry list of knee injuries happen on the track. Norwood broke her nose this year, yet you won’t see her skating with a facemask.
That may seem intimidating, but to most active skaters, roller derby is cathartic. Fourth-year mass communications student and captain of the CQS B-Team April Sundell, or “Betty Ford Cynic,” roller derby is a release from her busy days as a student and a working mother.
“I always say this is cheaper than therapy,” she said. “Roller derby changed my life — I’ve lost weight, and gotten more confident just in life in general.”
Miller and the rest of CQS share a love for derby for countless reasons, one being the community that comes with joining a league. According to her, every practice ends with everyone’s hands in the middle of a huddle, and they shout something — normally it’s “family.”
“I’ve seen so many women come insecure, in shambles in their lives, and this community just rallies,” Miller said. “When your world falls apart, you’ve always got a community of strong women who can take care of business there to hold you up.”
One of the reasons roller derby has grown in popularity is its overarching idea of acceptance of not only individual leagues, but the sport as a whole. WTFDA has a strict inclusive policy, accepting and encouraging skaters of any size, race, occupation, religion, gender or anything else. CQS, like all roller derby leagues, welcomes transwomen to their team with open arms. As Miller said, “If you identify as a woman, you are a woman and you play roller derby with us.”
As women join the league, CQS puts an exerted effort on making new skaters — or “fresh meat” — feel supported and welcomed. There’s no hazing here, and the league won’t turn anyone away regardless of prior experience. Sundell and Norwood were both new to roller skating when they joined the team years ago.
“We want newbies to understand how amazing this sport is,” Norwood said. “We’re not going to tell them they’re not cut out for it — we’re going to build them up and take as long as they need.”
Roller derby is one of the only sports where women paved the way, which created their grassroots, “do-it-yourself” mentality. Rather than basketball and women’s basketball, it’s roller derby and men’s roller derby. Because the sport is still in its infancy, the WFTDA and women within roller derby are setting stricter regulations, changing rules and improving it to make it a cleaner, well-structured sport. After all this hard work, roller derby players want to remain in control of what they’ve created.
“We don’t want sponsors to tell us who we are and what we look like,” Miller said. “We want this to be for women, by women.”
And they do more than just skate. The Columbia QuadSquad is complete with a board of directors, and they is also a certified 501(c)(4) charity. Every business aspect of the team is handled by skaters within the league, and they do everything they can to meet their mission statement: “to serve women and children in the midlands.”
“It’s fun to skate, and it’s fun to play, and we do it really well,” Miller said. “But we know that it’s also important to make an impact and to be part of our community.”
Once a rollergirl, always a rollergirl. Most skaters don’t compete past their forties, but that doesn’t mean their love for roller derby is going anywhere.
“I feel like I’ve lived the whole roller derby experience to the extreme, for sure,” Miller said. “I will be a fan until my dying breath, because the only way a spectator sport works is if there are spectators.”
To onlookers, roller derby is an obscure hobby, a social outlet or maybe a way to stay in shape, but for this diverse crowd of women, it’s a part of who they are.
“It changed my life,” Norwood said. “I didn’t find out who I was until I was 26 and started derby.”
