Talk Derby to Me
These ruthless rollers, these terminators in tutus, achieved the fiercest display of athletic prowess in booty shorts and fishnets that I have ever witnessed.
Bork Bork Bork” went the frenzied fans, the echoing rafters, and my damaged auditory nerve for three hours afterwards. As their screaming heads gyrated maniacally from left to right – their neon-blue signs, garb, and makeup all the while painting them as a clan of war-hungry Picts – the revelers chanting “Bork Bork Bork” did not conjure the sunniness of Sesame Street as much as they evoked the grisliness of Elm Street. Their heroine, a skater called “Bork Bork Bork,” who serves as a blocker for the Manic Attackers, had just sent a member of the opponent team, the Double Crossers, flying out of bounds through a vicious, almost lethally timed hip check.
At this point, you may be wondering whether I spent my Sunday evening at a hockey game, or perhaps on my sofa indulging in a pay-per-view wrestling match. Although the energy and spectacle of both were well-represented, on this particular night I had eschewed the ice and the cages in favor of a trepid venture into the world of women’s roller derby. Tightly clutching my general-admission ticket, I entered the UIC Pavilion, navigated through the crowds attacking the abundant rum-and-margarita stands, and made my way to the orange-seated expanse that surrounded the eighty-eight-foot track, whose boundaries were marked only by brightly colored plastic ropes. Any seat close enough to the edge might result in a hands-on – or, shall we say, skater-in-lap – experience of the sport, so I selected a seat midway up the stairs, settled in, and steeled myself for the carnage of the evening (This competition enjoys a rather naughty reputation).
After a musical nod to Old Glory dangling above the center of the rink, the Double Crossers and Manic Attackers sized each other up for the first match of the evening. Sunday’s bout was a doubleheader, with the Hell’s Belles and the Fury waiting in the wings to take their bloody turn on the floor. The announcer, roaming the sidelines with a microphone and a robin’s-egg-blue zoot suit, riled up the already rowdy crowd as the ladies of the Windy City Rollers, Chicago’s all-female, flat-track derby league, warmed up around the rink. The heat was on.
Aaaaaaaare you ready to talk derby to me?!” the man in the zoot suit screamed. For uninitiated patrons like myself, he then shouted out the rules of the game. This may be an unusual experience for a spectator at a sporting event, but it is less surprising when considering the youth of roller derby’s revival: the movement began its most recent reincarnation in Austin, Texas, only nine years ago.
Damon Runyon decided to emphasize the more spectacular elements of the speed-skating races of the 1930s: coordinated strategies in teamwork and, of course, violent girl-on-girl action.
Yet it originated first in the Windy City, when promoter Leo Seltzer and sportswriter Damon Runyon decided to emphasize the more spectacular elements of the speed-skating races of the 1930s: coordinated strategies in teamwork and, of course, violent girl-on-girl action. Rather than the traditional male-and-female pairs of the races, derby law calls for five players on two all-female teams—four blockers and a jammer. The blockers line up on the pivot line with the jammers stationed twenty feet behind. Once the whistle blows, the blockers take off counterclockwise in a pack formation and the jammers fight their way through the pack with the first one out gaining lead-jammer status. The jammers speed around the track and are eligible to rack up points once they’ve completed their first clean pass; this occurs when they legally pass a member of the opposing team (within bounds, without fouls), earning a point per skater. Meanwhile, the charge of the blockers is to expedite the safe passage of their own jammer through the pack while impeding that of the opposing team’s jammer by almost any means necessary.
Derby through the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s rapidly became a fixture in American popular culture. Yet the roller days had all the athletic legitimacy of the World Wrestling Federation. Much of the audience-pleasing bashing and smashing was choreographed, with the outcomes often predetermined in order to elicit the largest number of gasps and thrills.
