Derby girls: Lynchburg-area women start up roller derby team

The Blackwater Rollers huddle up by the rink, and eye their opponents.

The Charlottesville team skates by in a tight pack. They’re a blur of fishnet stockings, booty shorts and teal jerseys bearing names like “Bruta Liza” and “SparKills.”

Founding member Britten King-Marshall dishes out last-minute advice. She’s short and feisty, a lethal combination in derby, but at six months pregnant, she is sidelined from the bout.

“Remember the No. 1 rule — if they’re in your way, move them out of your way,” King-Marshall says.

“And don’t wait for them to knock you out. Take ’em out first.”

One year ago, the Lynchburg roller derby team was little more than a pipe dream. This is their first scrimmage: a showdown against the Charlottesville Derby Dames, the Star City Roller Girls (Roanoke) and the RockTown Rollers (Harrisonburg).

The scrimmage is on Blackwater’s home turf: AJ Skateworld in Appomattox. The rink was built in 1979, the same year “Roller Boogie” hit theaters, and its wooden floor still gleams under a disco ball and string of rainbow-colored lights.

The huddle disbands, and team Blackwater surveys its body armor. Since derby is a full-contact sport, each woman wears a helmet, kneepads, elbow pads, wrist guards and mouth guard.

There’s just one problem — Naughty Nini.

“Her skate’s falling apart!” hollers Suzanne Erickson, a.k.a. “Prudence.”

“Who’s got duct tape?”

Kristina “Naughty Nini” Mele is splayed on the floor, laughing, as her skate flaps loosely on her foot. In less than a minute, duct tape appears on the scene, and

teammates bind her skate back together.

Mele joins four teammates for the first two-minute jam. When the whistle blows, the skaters take off, and the Lynchburg area experiences its first taste of roller derby.

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In the last decade, roller derby has made a stealth comeback in cities large and small, fueled by word-of-mouth recruitment and a steady supply of women with a thirst for blood, sweat and roller glory.

Teams have popped up in Charlottesville, Roanoke and Harrisonburg in the past three years, and this fall, Lynchburg’s Blackwater Rollers made their official debut.

Roller derby involves one part gladiatorial combat, one part speed skating and one part spectacle. More than a sport, it’s a subculture, influenced by a do-it-yourself punk aesthetic and a fierce sense of femininity.

“Derby girls, they’re different from regular girls,” says 34-year-old Kersten “Chasey Pain” Morrison — a mom, bartender and tennis pro in Lynchburg.

“It’s not your average chick who wants to go out on roller skates and hit people.”

Roller derby began in the early 1930s as a 3,000-mile endurance race around an indoor track, the distance equal to that between San Diego and New York City, according to the National Museum of Roller Skating.

In 1937, the rules changed and derby began to resemble the rough and tumble sport it is today. Then, like now, players score points by weaving through a pack of opponents, who in turn try to thwart their progress with shoves and body blocks.

Derby’s popularity waned at the start of World War II. During the next half century, the sport experienced several revivals until it was overshadowed by inline skating in the late 1980s.

Fast forward to 2009. Disco is dead. And Rollerblades are so 1993.

Roller derby, however, is back with a vengeance.

In September, “Whip It,” a derby movie starring Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page, hit theaters nationwide. On Friday night, the Blackwater Rollers greeted moviegoers at the Carmike 8 for the Lynchburg premiere.

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The birth of Lynchburg’s derby team was not without labor pains.

The team changed its name twice before settling on Blackwater Rollers. (Teams in Texas and California had already claimed their first two names, Holy Rollers and Derby Dollz.)

They are on their second coach, J.D. Miller, boyfriend of player Tracey “Pizazz” Miller.

And their home rink has changed twice. (FunQuest in Lynchburg was too expensive, and the basketball court at the Salvation Army was too dangerous. “There were giant steel beams that if we hit each other into them, we could be decapitated,” said Mimi Campbell, a.k.a. “Slam Chowder.”)

The challenge of getting a team off the ground has created a bond between the team’s 15 or so core members.

“We’re like a family. There’s drama, but for the most part, I think we all get along great,” said Vicki “Mudpuppy” Maddox, a homemaker and volunteer forklift operator from Monroe.

There’s no stereotyping the women of Blackwater. There’s an 18-year-old student and a grandmother in her 40s. There’s a speech therapist and a self-described “bear hunter” from the mountains. There are church-going Christians, tattoo chicks, and church-going Christian tattoo chicks.

What binds them together is derby.

“We’ve brought together a bunch of great women that would not have necessarily met each other because they come from so many different backgrounds and circles,” says Campbell, a speech therapist from Lynchburg.

“We’ve created a little niche in the community that didn’t exist before.”

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Blackwater has embraced the derby traditions.

Newcomers are called “fresh meat” and players who stick around are christened with derby names.

Maddox, at 44, is one of the oldest members. She was an avid speed skater during her teenage years, and still wears the skates her father bought her in 1978. As of the spring, she had never heard of roller derby.

Now, she talks like a seasoned vet.

“I really just love it,” she says. “I feel like it’s in my blood.”

She has a bad left shoulder and fibromyalgia, but that doesn’t stop her from reveling in the body smashing. She tells her teammates to hit her on the right, her strong side, during practice. She saves her left side for the bouts.

“I get a little intimidated when I know somebody’s gonna hit me. I mean, when you get to be my age, you’re afraid you’re going to break bone, ya know?”

Mele was on the verge of leaving her marriage and Lynchburg for the greener pastures of Greensboro when she found derby.

“I just wasn’t very happy. I didn’t have any friends here in Lynchburg,” she says.

“And then I met the girls on the team and it was like an instant family.”

She loved every aspect of the sport, except once crucial component — hitting.

“I didn’t mind getting hit because I’m strong and tough . . . But I didn’t want to hit anyone. I’m all about the peace and the Om,” she says, striking a mock pose of meditation.

Gradually, Mele learned to hit, and built up her confidence, on and off the rink.

“It’s a chance to have an alter ego,” Mele says. “You get to be loud and strong and tough and rough and sexy and smart and athletic, and it’s all OK.”

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The scrimmage lasts about 90 minutes. The four teams face off, two at a time, in two-minute periods called jams. They rotate on and off the rink in rapid-fire succession.

At any given moment, most of the players have no idea what the score is. But they know one thing: Harrisonburg is tough.

The Harrisonburg women know how to hit, and getting through their tight defense is a challenge for the Lynchburg rookies.

Though derby is a contact sport, there are rules to keep the violence at bay. Players may only hit their opponent in the front of the body, and blows must land between the shoulders and knees.

It’s not uncommon for the women to topple into a pile four or five bodies high, limbs and skates flailing in a tangled mess.

Even spectators must be on their toes. At one point, a referee is so absorbed in the action, he careens off the rink and crashes into the Blackwater bench.

At the end of the bout, most of the Lynchburg players are convinced they came in dead last.

But there’s a surprise. They beat Charlottesville and came in a close third behind Roanoke. Harrisonburg, however, was untouchable.

The Blackwater rollers are pumped. They survived their first scrimmage, and even earned a win. They return to their next practice feeling closer than ever.

“I think we realized the most important thing is the team unity,” Mele says.

“That’s what we want above anything. We’re not willing to let that go now that we have that.”

The scrimmage was just a warm-up for Blackwater’s biggest challenge yet: their first bout on Nov. 21. Their foe: the Chemical Valley Rollergirls of Charleston, W.Va.