Fantasy in the Fast Lane
By: Carol McKinley
Toughie is knocked down! That was a fast one. Toughie Brasuhn knocked down. And she is boiling! Here comes Palermo! Gerry Murray’s back on defense. Watch it! Murray will try and knock her into the rail, into the infield, off her feet. Anything she can do ... if the referees don’t see her, anyhow. There’s Toughie on the assist. Watch that rail now as they’re getting closer. Closer to that rail! Look out! Into the rail goes Mary Lou Palermo! No score and you can bet your life that she’s happy there’s a four-inch foam rubber padding on all railings.
—excerpts from play by-play announcer calling
women’s roller derby game between
the New York Chiefs and the Jersey Jolters, 1952
“Denver, what’s the word, baby? (cheers) Ooooh! Turn of events for Crashdance. Looks like she, uh, racked up a little cut there. She’ll go to the penalty box. Which means one thing ... we’re gonna see Vinyl Trax skating back out, sometimes skating backwards to get in behind the pack. Punches ... up the ribs! One thing about women’s roller derby: It’s two hours of tough love given by some of your closest friends! And also some of your meanest enemies!”
—play-by-play announcer calling
recent intrasqaud bout
by the Denver Roller Dolls, fall 2009
Kimmy Kimmy Bang Bang Wilms puts her fishnet stockings on one leg at a time. As she rolls them up her calf, the black netting glitters under the light of a wagon-wheel chandelier. Then she shoves her toes in a roller skate and mumbles something about having to “take her medical boards in the morning.” Kimmy Kimmy Bang Bang, aka Dr. Wilms, is leading a double life. She’s a foot surgeon by day and a roller derby athlete by night. So far, she feels lucky that she hasn’t had to choose between the two. Smart, athletic women like Dr. Kim Wilms are looking for competition, sisterhood and a smashing good time on the roller rink. And they are coming to a town near you.
In fact, there’s a decent chance women’s flat-track roller derby is already in your neighborhood. The Rocky Mountain area boasts teams in Fort Collins, Greeley, Pueblo and Colorado Springs. Denver has two: the original Rocky Mountain Roller Girls and the Denver Roller Dolls, which broke off from the RMRG to form a separate team three years ago. Dotting the U.S. map are groups from San Francisco, to Omaha, Kansas City and Sioux Falls, to Tampa Bay. The league is under the umbrella of the women’s Flat Track Derby Association. Internationally, there are 450 leagues in 11 countries, including Belgium and Australia, which makes you wonder: If ballroom dancing made it to the Olympics, why not roller sports? Erica Hutchinson of the U.S. Olympic Committee says sports like roller derby and skateboarding will have to wait a long time for the chance to be considered. For just a look from the USOC, a sport must be played in 40 countries. The newest summer Olympic sports to debut in Rio de Janeiro six years from now will be golf and rugby.
Still, a sport that was at its height in the ‘50s is making a spirited comeback. The second time around, though, the character of women’s roller derby has morphed into a hybrid very different from the days of Josephine “Ma” Bogash and Midge “Toughie” Brasuhn. Back then, women didn’t wear helmets, kneepads, fishnets or ruffled skirts. Twenty-first century women’s roller derby moves at a slower pace because it’s skated on a safer, flat oval track as opposed to the banked roller rink of the early days. Today’s derby women are doctors and moms and beauty queens, musicians and bartenders and engineers. They’re just as likely to be 40-something as they are to be in their 20s. They are not paid athletes, so they don’t have to play by the same rules as the pros. It’s not unusual to see them drinking liquor on the sidelines, still in the uniform, because they can. They are proud of their bruises and afraid to be bored. It’s the way you roll when you are a derby girl.
This is a new breed of female who has grown up seeing herself as equal to men in sports. She can’t wait to get out there for a chance to push and shove other women on wheels. Roller Doll Jennifer “86-Stabbin’-5309” Plinski has a theory about why everyone gets along: “We beat on each other just enough to get the aggression and hostility out, and then we’re all best friends!” Another big difference between old-school and modern-day roller derby is the garish show the newer league puts on. Roller Derby 2010 is a sparkly spectacle designed to attract an audience with a shorter attention span and more entertainment options than any generation before.
It’s a Tim Burton movie come alive. It’s a hallucination without the drugs.
At a recent Denver Roller Dolls bout at Broomfield’s FirstBank Arena, the ticket-takers on skates greet you with skull faces and tiaras. Another woman wears huge silver wings on her back, gliding the floor like Tinkerbell in pigtails. And then there’s the legendary Dumptruck, whose real name is Robert Emerson Stroupe II. Dumptruck is the official play-by-play guy who calls bouts in a raspy voice with a gargly sound, like he’s underwater. “Is everyone ready for rrrroooollllerrrr derrrrrrbyyyy?” Dump is a big man in a bigger sleeveless airline attendant dress. All through the night, he announces team sponsors like tattoo parlors and orthopedic offices that “fix crushed bones.” An admirer with a beer in his hand saunters up to Dump. “You’re looking hot tonight.” “Oh, this is just one of my many outfits. Or should I say ‘boutfits.’ ” Dumptruck has a closet full of boutfits, including a red, white and blue cheerleading skirt and a diaper. Just a diaper. Which he wears with black cowboy boots. No one thinks
it’s weird.
The most comfortable seat in the house is parked rinkside. It’s a couch, where three fans dressed in superhero capes are bouncing up and down. This is the famed “couch of doom,” and they have won a contest for the right to sit there. In the stands, zombies and pirates play frantic air guitar and boo. This Saturday night; more than 3,000 kids, grandpas and lovers have paid 15 bucks apiece to catch the action. “This is the best entertainment dollar in town! Who wants to watch baseball? It’s like watching paint dry!” yells a squatty storm trooper. He explains the roller costume party: “The strangest thing you can wear here would be something normal.” I am wearing a department store sweater and clogs. “You look like an undercover cop,” he says to me. “Or a reporter.”
On the floor is a guy in an all-white yachting ensemble parting the roller derby crowd with a bloody, roaring chainsaw. He’s the mascot of the opposing team, The Texecutioners. These women have come all the way from Austin to skate a race in holey stockings and tiny shorts. The message across one rear end? “No skirt? No problem.”
The Denver women are chanting “FTF! FTF!,” which stands for either “feel the floor” or “f*** their faces,” depending on your interpretive mood. Six referees with names like Tinny Tinwhistle and Cougar Bait skate about the track calling scores and fouls. They blow the whistle for intentional trips, holds, grabs and scratches. Also forbidden is blocking with elbows, hands or heads. Thank goodness they’re keeping score, because if you’re a derby virgin, it’s hard to follow the women as they skate laps knocking each other around.
The competition looks like a human pinball game, but there is a master plan. Despite the circus atmosphere, these women are serious about winning. Each bout has two periods of 30 minutes apiece. Five players from each team are on the track at the same time. Four of those are blockers and the fifth is a “jammer.” She’s the one with a star on her helmet. It’s the jammer’s job to skate laps, finding an open path to pass. A jammer earns a point for each member of the opposing team she passes, and the team with the most points wins. The score is surprisingly high and runs up quickly. At an early point during the Roller Dolls’/Texecutioners’ bout, Denver is winning by a score of 34-11. Within minutes, the JumboTron shows the Dolls moving further ahead, 57-18. The final ends up 130-112.
With this bout, the underdog Denver team has toppled one of its major rivals. The Denver Dolls are now on the heels of the No. 1-ranked Oly Rollers of Olympia, Washington. The two teams will likely face off in the Western regionals in Sacramento this fall. To make things interesting, the other Denver team, the Rocky Mountain Roller Girls, is a constant threat to overtake the Dolls. Just this year, the Denver Dolls got a boost when they signed a big-time agreement with Kroenke Sports and AEG. Local sports execs think women’s roller derby has the potential to be as popular as the Denver Mammoth lacrosse team. Despite the hope for a bigger fan base, women’s roller derby cannot make it onto the evening sports news. Still, the Denver Dolls are on a roll.
In a box seat just yards from the track, a woman is watching the bout with anxious eyes. For the past 40-plus years, Cindy McCoy has lived in obscurity, a Longmont grandma tending her roses and making deliveries to military bases for a living. But in her glory days, she skated in front of as many as 52,000 people as one of the legendary Thunderbirds. McCoy was a true rebel, dropping out of school at the age of 14 to sign up in 1964. She skated as a T-Bird in Los Angeles and Australia and once held the title of “rookie roller games queen.”
“Back in those days, all I could think about was skating. I was small, but I was tough.” Young, petite and lovely, McCoy was a target for the fierce track fighters who thought they could get the best of her. “They would throw powder in your eyes so you couldn’t see. The big gals would lock your arms so the refs couldn’t tell they were beating on you.”
McCoy remembers doing hand-to-hand derby combat with a voluminous-haired woman who wouldn’t leave her alone. “She had huge teased hair, and I grabbed it. She spit on me. I had my hands in her hair and I was smacking her head into the track.” Roller derby skaters didn’t wear helmets back then. Because of it, McCoy “saw stars” more than once. She was forced out of roller derby in 1967 because one too many falls resulted in a severely dislocated tailbone.
Today, she is still a knockout, even at 60 years old. The high-on-her-head ponytail of her teeny-bopper days now falls loose over her shoulders, thick and dark brown. She has kept the trademark arched eyebrows ala American Graffiti. And she’s kept something else: roller derby fever. “My dream is to have a facility where little kids can skate in a peewee league. The Derby Dolls can use the track for practice. In return they can coach the little girls. Like church camp, they’d have skating camps for children to learn respect and conditioning.” There are teardrops on McCoy’s cheeks. She remembers how hard it used to be for a female to want to be something other than a cheerleader or a girlfriend on
someone’s arm.
“Girls can be strong athletes and be proud of it. Don’t ever let them take that away from you!”
McCoy is right. It takes strength and commitment to be a Denver roller doll. Practice is on work nights in a huge barn-turned-skating rink in Brighton. They drive into the unlit dirt parking lot on a recent night dressed in layers, hair tucked in hats and bobby pins, their skates slung over their shoulders. Inside, they wait out a kids’ birthday party for their turn on the track, sitting on a carpet decorated with neon curlicues and skates. There are Skittles and M&M’S in the snack-bar candy machine, Donna Summer is on the loudspeaker and lava lamps adorn the display case. Tonight, a stay-at-home mom named Carmen is trying out for a spot on the junior Roller Dolls team, called the Baby Dolls. “I don’t know what I’m doing! I hope I haven’t bit off more than I can chew.” She looks like she was once the popular girl in school. “But my kids think I’m the coolest mom eevverrrr!!!”
Once the birthday group, trailing wrapping paper and balloons, has left the track, the Baby Dolls and a handful of veterans have the place to themselves. They’re like little kids practicing knee-skids, sliding across the polished floor. One of them says she is Miss Nebraska 2003, but that doesn’t seem to impress Teresa “Wicked Sister” Rusk. She gives the lowdown: “Practice starts at eight o’clock. Not eight-oh-one. You must be ready when you clock in.” This is not a pastime for the weekend athlete who thinks she can show up whenever she feels like it. As she poses for a photo, Kimmy Kimmy Bang Bang flashes her dimples and wonders if she looks “too chunky” in her derby uniform, shyly pushing her hem down to her knees. She’s different once she’s on the track, where Ms. Bang Bang is true to her name.
“My mom had me in skate-dancing lessons, but I wanted to get in there and hit people!” Standing nearby as the Baby Dolls train is Denver Derby Doll star Vicky “Slick Vick” Cruz. She is 35, gorgeous and sturdy. At her day job, she’s a chemist who works to improve cancer drugs. But tonight, the nerdy plastic goggles are gone and she looks like Wonder Woman in her blue tights and silver briefs.
For so long, roller derby was a tired image of an era half a century ago. On YouTube, ghostlike images of women on fuzzy black-and-white film still knock each other to the ropes. But it’s back, live, in color and kitschy-cool, like garden gnomes and Munster lunchboxes. And it’s attracting a new generation of smart women who have traded book clubs and chardonnay for fantasy in the fast lane. Slick Vick smiles and tosses her straight pageboy hair. “It’s what smart women do.”
By: Carol McKinley
it’s weird.
someone’s arm.