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HomeSPORTSTOUGH BUT FUN-LOVING WOMEN BRING ROLLER DERBY BACK AROUND

TOUGH BUT FUN-LOVING WOMEN BRING ROLLER DERBY BACK AROUND

By Camila A. Gonzalez

 

“As fast as a bullet, she can jam all night

Makes a full-grown wonder bull die with fright

She’s the queen of the roller derby”

Leon Russell

“Queen of the Roller Derby”

 

Monik Gutierrez is a nicely-dressed, well-coifed 46-year-old professional photographer whose art is to capture the loveliness of nature and the best of people.

When night falls her other side emerges.

Her makeup transforms from moderate to menacing. Her professional attire vanishes and her warrior gear wraps around her muscular body like improvised armor. “Pretty Woman” becomes “The Road Warrior” as quickly as thumbing the channel changer.

Monik surrenders to Mamarazzi 619. The beast is set free.

It’s derby night.

Roller derby is a rowdy sport dominated by athletic, rough-and-tumble women. It is more than 90 years old and narrowly missed being a sport in the 2020 Olympics, but is unknown to most Americans and an afterthought in the South County.

Mamarazzi and her sisters of slam are out to change that.

National City’s Mamarazzi is part of an underground sport that is not really under the ground. Roller derby is played in at least 50 countries and all 50 states. Its popularity peaked in the late 1960 and into the 1970s when it was a televised professional sport, but it has never faded away. Today, in fact, roller derby is once again on a roll.

A proud Chicana, Mamarazzi is an elbow-throwing trailblazer in a sport born of white skaters in the Depression-era Midwest. Today’s roller derby athletes are a rich mix of women from many races and every socio-economic tier.

“People will see all walks of life in this sport,” she said. “We are all very welcoming of each other and roller derby is very welcoming all around. After each bout we are proud of each other and does not matter if we made mistakes. I love the camaraderie and excitement we have for one another.”

FUN AND INFECTIOUS

Rock-n-Roll Hall of Famer Leon Russell is hardly the first person to fall in love with roller derby on first sight. After a rollicking concert in Oakland, the Oklahoma singer-songwriter was trying to unwind in his hotel room when he came across a bout featuring the Bay City Bombers on TV. His “queen of the roller derby” was a sexy star who could throw a mean right hook.

“It was infectious fun,” he said. “It needed a song, so I gave it one.”

Roller derby’s creation story is a little blurry and possibly embellished, but the accepted narrative is that the sport was invented by Chicago promoter Leo Seltzer and given its edge by legendary Windy City sports writer Damon Runyon. Seltzer started a touring league that was proto-punk and camp, but also legit. The women played for keeps and played to win.

During the late 1970s and up against the 21st century roller derby strayed from the true faith and often become scripted spectacles in the manner of WWF and other made-for-television performance sport. It was popular on TV in the 1960s and 1970s in some urban markets, but suffered a decline during the glum Reagan years.

Amateurs have resurrected the sport’s integrity and popularity. There are about 1,250 leagues worldwide. Though roller derby is most popular in the United States, it also thrives in England, Australia, New Zealand as well as parts of Asian and Africa. Most leagues honor the brashness and tongue-in-cheek nomenclature of the American game.

Roller derby is played by two teams on an oval track. Each team fields five skaters at a time and may have up to 15 on a roster. Like hockey, teams send out lines of players for short but intense bursts of activity, then rotate in rested players.

Matches are called “bouts” and last for 60 minutes. During two-minute “jams” a player on each time designated as the “jammer” attempts to score points by lapping opposing skaters. “Blockers” work to prevent the jammers from scoring. Jammers score a point each time they lap a blocker. There are four points to be had if all the blockers are passed.

Bouts are often freewheeling scrums of flying elbows and hip checks evocative of rugby, hockey or football. Players can land in the penalty box like hockey and score a four-point grand slam like baseball. Bruises are the most common injury, but the occasional concussion or broken bones mean medical personnel with stretchers are usually standing by.

SLAMMING SISTERHOOD

Roller derby is fast, full contact and the domain of legit badasses, said Lisa Del Gado, 36, a member of the Winetown Rollers better known by her skate name Legatron 88.

“Being able to hit people is my favorite part of bout days,” she said. “After a long work week, it is nice to have a release from that. In regular day-to-day life you cannot hit people, but in roller derby you can.”

An eight-year skating veteran, Legatron said her team practices hard and is strategic like the NFL or NBA.

“I try to visualize everything we have practiced,” she said. “I visualize executing for my team.”

Legatron assures fans that her use of the word “execute” is figurative and that in spite of their hyper-aggressive bouts, roller derby skaters support and respect each other. Weekend combatants, like crabs, have hard exteriors but soft insides. “Play hard and leave as friends” is the ethos for a sport that is aggressive, but also an act of sisterhood that allows women a forum for physical and personal expression.

“There is a sense of unity,” she said. “We come together to be rowdy and have fun, but also to push one another to be the best versions of ourselves.”

Mamarazzi, who was throwing some wicked elbows minutes earlier, agreed.

“We are very supportive of each other and (roller derby) is a forum for different kinds of women to come together,” she said.

A recent bout between San Diego Roller Derby and the Winetown Rollers was a flurry of fishnets, long legs, heavy makeup and hot wheels rumbling laps around the thundering rink. With just four minutes before the final whistle, the jammers give it their all in a desperate effort to grab the final points and victory.

Elbows and shoulder checks sent blockers wobbling, but not out. A timer blared and the skaters’ hands dropped to their knees as they allowed their momentum to carry them around the track gasping for breath and dripping with sweat.

San Diego Roller Derby racked a 146 to 131 victory. Advil and Aspercreme will follow, but endorphins and euphoria fueled toothy grins on mascara-streaked faces.

For Mamarazzi it harkens back to her childhood and teens circling the old hardwood skating palace in National City and its Chula Vista counterpart on the corner of Broadway and Fifth Avenue near Chula Vista Middle School. For 26-year-old Olivia Hill, a first-time spectator, it was a moment of awe.

“These are great athletes,” she said. “What impeccable balance! You never hear about (roller derby) as a mainstream sport, but it was so inspiring to see women in a full-contact sport.”

Mamarazzi admitted that she relishes her Jekyll and Hyde avocation. So do her skating sisters Maiden China, Molly Tov Cocktail, Anne Smashaway, Sandra Day O’Clobber and Roly Mary Mother of Quad. Sometimes she has to explain the bruises to her photography customers, but she considers them badges of honor.

“It’s all good, clean fun, verdad?

Weekend warriors on wheels, the derby women rest up for Saturday night.

Photos By Camila A. Gonzalez/Staff

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