Looking down at the red splotches on her blue-and-white striped stockings, the woman they call Krispy Stick says, “I tell people it’s their blood.”
And then she smiles.
Kristen Pope, as she’s known when she isn’t wearing the not actually bloody stockings, is the league manager for Central Arkansas Roller Derby, one of several leagues in the state that are participating in the ongoing revival of the girl-power sport of roller derby.
“Friendship, exercise, fun - that’s the reason why I came here,” said Pope, a teacher. “I wanted to get up off my couch and meet new people, and it’s been a blast ever since.”
Pope got her first taste of roller derby in 2006 while visiting her sister, who participated in derby in Fort Smith.
“I went to one of their practices … and I came back here and joined the league immediately,” Pope said. “It was only about a month old at the time.”
Today, she’s the last remaining member of the early days who’s still involved in Central Arkansas Roller Derby.
Of course, there are plenty of options when it comes to getting some exercise, but Pope says she’s not into mainstream sports and also she was intrigued by a women’s sport that was more physical than most. And she liked the fact that the club’s membership was made up of women from all sorts of professions and backgrounds.
“Anybody could do it,” she said. “Most people that come here know what it’s all about now and they want to do it because it appeals to them. Sometimes we get the tomboys, but we get the girly-girls in here, too. It’s a wide variety of women.”
Founded in 2006, Central Arkansas Roller Derby (CARD) has about 50 members and fields two teams, the Big Dam Rollers and the Rock-n-Renegades. The league’s home bouts (as the contests are known) are held at Skateworld in southwest Little Rock. Bouts take place on a flat oval with two teams of five.
In a nutshell, the object of roller derby is for each team to help its jammer - designated by a star on her helmet - get around the track as many times as possible.
Each time a jammer passes members of the opposing team, she scores points. Meanwhile, her teammates - three blockers and a pivot (who can switch places with the jammer on the fly) - do their best to keep the other team’s jammer from getting through, and to keep the other team’s blockers from holding up their own jammer.
There’s a bit more to it, but know that much going in, and you’ll have no trouble keeping up with the action.
FALLING SOFTLY
Lacey Kelly of Little Rock was a newbie to roller derby last season with the Rock-n-Renegades. In fact, she was pretty much new to skating entirely; she took up skating when she took up derby.She has an athletic background - she’s a runner, and did this year’s Pike’s Peak Marathon in Colorado. She was out running when someone suggested she give derby a try.
“I didn’t want to, I wanted to save my knees for running,” said Kelly, a graphic designer for Goodwill Industries of Arkansas. “He wouldn’t leave me alone and I said I’d go to one practice. I went, and the girls were really nice - I thought they’d be mean, but they weren’t. It’s been really fun; the longer I do it, the more I like it.”
That despite the fact she cracked a rib last season and was bothered by it for six months.
But, she said, “it’s a lot safer than people think.” You learn how to “fall small” to avoid injury, and you wear protective gear - helmet, elbow and knee pads, and the like. Plus there are rules to ensure that what contact is allowed will be less likely to lead to injuries. Though they still happen.
“You’re going to get hurt, you know that,” Kelly said. “But if you play the game the way you’re meant to, it minimizes the chances.”
The Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (wftda.com/history) traces the term “roller derby” to the 1920s when it was used for marathon skating races. But in the 1930s, a promoter named Leo Seltzer started a more physical and competitive form of the game and took it on tour nationwide. The sport he promoted stamped roller derby with a violent image.
Seltzer’s success eventually spurred other leagues and enjoyed popularity through the 1960s and into the 1970s. Interest tapered over the next few decades.
The most recent revival can be traced to Austin, Texas, in the early 2000s, where flat track roller derby was established. (See the 2009 movie Whip It, in which Ellen Page plays a small-town Texan who finds her personal power in an Austin roller derby league.) BRUISES, BRAWLERS, BROADS
Given the sport’s rather flamboyant past, roller derby still struggles with an image problem among people whose conception of it might be summarized as “a demolition derby on skates.” And back in the 1930s and ’40s - when clothes lining a member of the opposing side while sling-shotting teammates around a banked track was just part of the fun - that may have been accurate.
But while the game has changed, those perceptions have hung on.
“It’s not something people come out and say, but a lot of people tend to think it’s trashy,” Pope said. “A lot of people think it’s tattooed, pierced women beating each other up. It’s not.”
These days it’s more like NASCAR on a flat track: Yeah, sure, there’s some pushing and bumping, but positioning and tactics are far more important.CONTROLLED MAYHEM
“A lot of what we teach is about weight-shifting; it’s all in how you move your body,” said Khristi Marcrum, known as Coach BATs (an acronym her husband came up with for a phrase too indelicate for a family newspaper). “If you can get them in the mindset of ‘I need to move this way in order to make the wheel turn this way,’ you kind of break it down.”
Marcrum started teaching skating skills to other players while she was sidelined by a knee injury, and eventually “slipped into coaching” in 2008. She went from an assistant and a bench coach to a head coach and eventually served on the board of Central Arkansas Roller Derby. For her, derby offered a return to her childhood roots as a “rink rat” at Skate Connection in Sherwood, where she grew up.
“I’ve skated all my life. I can’t even remember when I learned how to skate,” she said. “I had gotten to where I was looking for something different and I knew we had roller derby here and thought I could do that. I came through the door not knowing anyone but knowing how to skate.”
Five years into her coaching career, Marcrum still loves it when her players learn new skills like skating backward in packs or learn how to jump and land safely.
“It’s amazing to me,” she said. “We went from a team of people that weren’t really familiar with skating … to take those people and make them into people who can skate in all directions, not thinking how their feet are moving. That’s a reward.”
Having sublime skating skills is crucial in derby, but mind you, it’s still a contact sport. Fisticuffs may be out, but body checks? Oh, yeah - totally OK. Ask any number of derby participants what they like about it and the standard line is, “I get to hit people and not get in trouble.”
“I get to hit people and not get in trouble,” said Bailey Fitzpatrick of Cabot, who skates as Daisy Fever and is team captain and co-founder of Girls Rollin’ in the South, or GRITS, a team based in Cabot that draws players from around central Arkansas.
But, naturally, there’s more to derby’s appeal than occasionally hip-blocking someone to the floor. There’s the fact that it’s a way to be physically active that doesn’t require a huge reservoir of natural talent or skills that take years to hone.
“I’ve never been an athletic person. I was that kid in school who never did anything,” said Fitzpatrick, a dog groomer who has two young sons. “You can learn to skate. You can’t learn to run or shoot baskets in just a few weeks. Now I consider myself an athlete; I train just as hard as my fastest and toned-up skaters, and I can hang with them.”
She also likes the fact that derby is suited to any body style: From tall to short, from willow wand to zaftig, whether you’re a fitness fanatic or couch potato. And as long as you’re at least 18, your age doesn’t matter, either.
“If you want to come do it, bring it on,” she said. “Come skate with me !”
ActiveStyle, Pages 27 on 09/09/2013