In the middle of the gray-painted rink, Meghan Smith--a lithe woman with wavy black hair and a flashy red shirt emblazoned with a black pistol--held court under a disco ball splashing red and blue lights on the walls. With Le Tigre blasting over the sound system, Smith raced toward the center, squatted down on one leg, and stretched her other skate out in front, bending low to glide across the floor. Minutes later, she skidded back to the center to lead an impromptu backward-skating class.
Warner quickly stowed the camera and laced up her own skates--old-school chocolate brown leather with yellow stitching--and raced out to join the lesson.
With just over six months to go before their first roller-derby bout, the Rat City Roller Girls' Wednesday-night practice is about honing the basics and welcoming new skaters. The brand-new league--the brainchild of Warner and a few of her friends--revved up in March, and the "roller babes" are working overtime to recruit skaters, get gear and insurance, raise money, hire a coach, and launch the country's tenth roller-derby league.
By early 2005, the Rat City league plans to have four derby teams and a home venue--a rink where they can stage monthly bouts featuring two teams going head-to-head, bands rocking at halftime, and beer for the crowd. They're following the lead of leagues like the Texas Rollergirls in Austin, the Gotham Girls in New York City, and the L.A. Derby Dolls, groups of energetic women with nicknames like Emma Gedden and Alotta Trouble who are reworking the iconic '70s-style roller derby for today's urban hipsters.
Rat City started after Warner, in Austin last year for South by Southwest, heard about the Texas leagues. "One of the Holy Rollers came into a club on skates," Warner--AKA Hurricane Lilly--explains at the Venus Lounge, after a recent league meeting. "All last year I was obsessed with roller derby. I was considering moving to Austin to try out." Instead, she chatted with her friend Rahel Cook at a dinner party a few months ago: "I'd been looking for a team sport," Cook says. When she heard about Warner's roller-derby dreams, Cook suggested they start a league here, and with the help of a third friend, Katie Merrell, Rat City was born. Within hours of starting an e-mail list on March 31, 25 women, ranging in age from 21 to just over 40, had signed up. Now, two months later, there are 40 roller girls on Rat City's roster, and dozens more on the e-mail list. The women meet weekly, and have recently broken into committees to do the grunt work: fundraising, sponsorship, marketing. There's also the team-bonding work, like donning their new T-shirts (with a sassy logo of a roller babe with a black eye) and volunteering at rock clubs to get the word out. "Did I know this would take off like a rocket?" says Cook. "No!"
In addition to promotion, skaters are scouring thrift stores for retro skates and coming up with names for skaters (Rahel goes by Rae's Hell) and teams (Warner's got her heart set on "Wheels of Fire"). "You have to find a persona that suits you," says Warner, whose long black hair is streaked with fire-engine red. And you can't take a name used by a skater in a different city. Before practice on Wednesday, roller girls on the sidelines tossed out names. "Does anyone still need a name?" asked one girl as she laced up her skates. "My old one is up for grabs." The skater, formerly known as Farrah Moans, has now claimed Patty Hurts, and jersey number AK-47.
Rat City is moving at a fast clip, thanks to help from other leagues. Though a first bout in early 2005 seems a long way off, it's actually a record of sorts. "That is some speed! We skated for like a year and a half before our first bout," says Whiskey L'Amour, AKA Lacey Attuso, of the Texas Rollergirls, one of the original leagues. When they started skating four years ago, L'Amour says, "people were joking that we were just going to keep doing fundraisers." The Texas Rollergirls have passed on crucial info to Rat City, like the basic rules of bouting, what kind of skates to buy, and how to get insurance. Although the leagues will play within their own cities to start, they hope to eventually have national bouts, so it's important that everyone knows the same rules. So the Texas Rollergirls have formed a united-league committee to coordinate everyone. "We're not trying to tell anybody what to do, but all the other leagues have been really receptive to taking our advice. We pretty much created a rule book from the ground up," L'Amour says.
The Rat City girls are glad for the help--none of them have ever competed before, since the sport is new to most people. And it's complicated: Bouts involve two teams of five, each with a "jammer," a "pivot," and three blockers. Each bout is split into four 14-minute periods, with seven "jams" per period. A jam involves both teams circling a track--Rat City will bout on a flat track for now, but hope to compete on a banked track someday--with each jammer trying to lap the other team. Every player the jammer passes equals one point, but the other team's three blockers try to stop the jammer from getting through, and the pivot can swap roles with the jammer. The result? Fast-paced skating, a bit of fighting, and plenty of action for the crowd. "It's definitely a spectator sport," Warner says. "Kind of like wrestling." Except with sassy girls on roller skates.
The derby is a huge hit in Austin, says L'Amour. "You have athleticism, you have beauty, you have girls kicking the crap out of each other, and you have rock and roll and beer. That's pretty much the recipe for success," she says. "People used to come to the bouts just for the spectacle of it; now we have the most engaged, rabid fans. People keep stats, and have their favorite skaters."
Rat City's roller babes hope that happens here. So far, attracting fans doesn't seem to be a problem, given the reception they've gotten: indie businesses lining up to donate prizes for fundraisers, bands volunteering to play to help them raise money, and guys angling to be sideline announcers. Right now, the skaters are channeling that energy into upcoming fundraisers--like one at the Sunset Tavern on June 18, where people can get in the door to hear bands like the Mexican Blackbirds and Beat Senseless for six bucks, and pay a few more for a Polaroid with their favorite skater--and maintaining the hype. That, and learning to bout. Skating off of the rink back at Southgate last Wednesday, a roller girl plunked down on the sidelines to recover from the backward-skating lesson. "How'd it go?" a teammate asked. The skater, a tall girl with a red star tattooed on her wrist, sighed and smiled. "First, the fundamentals. Then knocking people over!"
