Published in the Quad-City Times on Jan. 18, 2024

On the surface, roller derby is circular.

Round and round the skaters go, trying to pass their opponents on the egg-shaped track. It’s a physically intense sport where what goes around comes around.

But at the second practice of the season for the Quad City Rollers — the Quad-Cities’ “premier female and gender non-conforming flat-track roller derby” team — you could trace a straight line from the newcomers to the veterans.

On one end of the Eldridge Community Center rink, experienced skaters, many of whom have been around for most of the Rollers’ 18-year history, skated gracefully. Sheer muscle and exasperation beamed from their faces. Teammates dragged one another around like a bodybuilder would a pickup truck.

But on the other end, “newbies” practiced their first lesson of derby bootcamp: how to fall. Over and over again, they collapsed in heaps, just yards away from the team’s most tenured members.

There are two parts of a fall, according to newbie coach and 10-year Roller Tracy Koivisto. First, you lean forward, to make sure you land safely on your knee pads and not your tailbone. The second part is simpler: you get back up.

“As a newbie, that can be hard,” Koivisto said.

Many Roller rookies have never tried derby before. Some of them have never even put on skates. But the lack of entry barriers is where the beauty is, Koivisto said. She joined the team in 2014 after retiring from the U.S. Army. Back then, she had zero derby experience.

“The intent was to find a group of kick-ass women to form a social network,” she said. “I knew I liked to skate, (but) didn’t know if I would care for the sport, per se.

“It’s all that and a bag of chips.”

‘It’s not just elbows’

The Quad City Rollers compete as part of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association. They’re part of the organization’s North American Northeast division, which includes teams from Missouri to Boston and everywhere in between.

Of the 130 teams in their division, the Rollers are ranked 40th, above squads from bigger metro areas like Cleveland, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Toronto. The Rollers’ season runs from January to June and August to November. Their first home bout of 2024 is on March 30 at the Eldridge Community Center.

Rollers head coach Louie Allers has helmed the team for six years. He started coaching derby based off his experience as a deck hockey player, and noted that the sport is a lot more than just physicality.

“It’s not just elbows and all that stuff. It’s a very technical sport,” he said. “All of us have put a lot of time into going up the rankings as high as we can.”

Beyond the physical toll, the season also requires a lot of travel. The team schedules games no further than six hours away, but last season alone they visited Rockford, Ames, Chicago and Hallsville, Missouri.

While travel may be a logistical obstacle for the Rollers, who are an entirely member-owned and volunteer-ran nonprofit, it does bring the team closer. Staying in hotels, hosting team dinners, sharing the open road — Koivisto said that’s when the Rollers start to feel like a family.

“We’re there to play, we’re serious, we’re not there to party,” she said. “But it’s still a lot of fun.”

The rink and the road have become a needed third place for many players on the team. At practice this week, multiple skaters noted that the second you join the Rollers, you make 50 friends.

“In the offseason, I feel just sad honestly,” said Roxi Schlue, a 10-year Roller and the team’s recruitment coordinator. “Because you just have this outlet. You get that adrenaline rush seeing your friends.”

The pursuit of kinship is why most Roller newcomers arrive at bootcamp. One current newbie, Sarah Jamieson, moved to the Quad-Cities just days before showing up to practice. She came in hopes of finding a new social circle.

“I feel like I’ll make a lot of friends here, like they’re my people,” she said, moments before her first day of training, and moments after assessing the rink full of skaters in front of her.

“People who just are who they are without caring.”

Jamieson was admittedly concerned about falling. In a sport driven by contact, she was daunted by the chance she might get hurt. But sure enough, at the end of her first practice, Jamieson was laughing in line for falling drills.

Inside a ‘derby name’

It takes 40 hours to have the skills to be a Roller, according to the team’s detailed training regimen. But you’re not a true derby competitor without a derby name. Nicknames are a historic staple of the sport, adopted by each member of every team.

They’re often driven by puns and pop culture references. One expansive roster online has a list of thousands of derby names worldwide: Peaches and Scream, Cinderellbows, Venus Thightrap and Rolldemort are just on the first page.

Names on the Rollers include Mean Latifah, Ruthless Skater Ginsberg, Merry Wanna, Jamis Joplin and Penny Pain. Roxi Schlue is Roxi Balboa. Koivisto, with her experience as a colonel in the U.S. military, is Kolonel Khaos.

Referees and coaches get names too — Allers goes by “King Louie.”

Everything about the sport is personally expressive. The players’ helmets are lined with stickers and colorful designs. Even the numbers can be tongue-in-cheek — Nichol Nichols wears number 55 (“double nickels”) and goes by Betty Bust-a-buns. She chose that name because of just how often she used to fall as a newbie. Now, she’s a team captain.

“I still knock myself over sometimes,” she said with a laugh, grabbing a drink of water before heading back into the rink.

Newbies get to pick their name at the end of bootcamp, announcing it in a triumphant rite of passage ceremony in front of the rest of their teammates. At that moment, an identity is born. An alter ego that’s not just an aspiring skater, but a member of the team. Not just a newbie, but a Roller.

Near the end of practice on Wednesday, Nichols and her teammates cheered each other on through blocking drills at one end of the rink. String lights hung from the ceiling, and two clusters of mirrorballs reflected the skaters’ movements back onto them. Around and around they went.

At the other end, Koivisto taught newbies how to glide on one leg by moving their bodyweight from one foot to the other.

“You have to shift,” she reminded the newest class of potential Rollers. “It’s not gonna work if you don’t shift.”

Jamieson nodded from her place near the front of the line. Near the back, another newbie practiced her balance. She stood on one skate and bended her left leg upward like a flamingo, toppling and landing on her knees.

And then, sure enough, she got back up.