Ready to roll with Indy's first male-only roller derby team

Devil Doc (AKA Ken Williams, Anderson), a skater for the Race City Rebels, skates during practice at the Ellenberger Park roller skating rink on Oct. 20. Men's roller derby will make its debut in Indianapolis on Oct. 30. (Credit: Charlie Nye / Metromix)

Meet Indy's all-male roller derby team: Race City Rebels

Twenty-four skaters crowd the polished concrete track at Ellenberger Park’s Ice Rink. It’s a Tuesday night, and the men and women are huddled together, ready to start skating through the evening’s third drill. Among them are 24 helmets and mouthguards. Forty-eight knee, wrist, and elbow pads. Forty-eight skates and 192 wheels. Countless bruises.

Plus one really great idea: Coed roller derby.

Late this year, the Circle City Socialites, a local roller derby league, established a men’s derby team, the Race City Rebels, under its umbrella league. And though the men hope eventually to compete in all-men’s events, for now, they’re skating alongside the gals and preparing for their premier coed bout on Oct. 30.

I am a skater with the Naptown Roller Girls, an Indianapolis league that was formed in 2006. I’ve been skating for nearly four years, and I am used to taking hits from women twice my size. But I had yet to take to the track against men. It was time to try it out.
 
A history of commingling

When roller derby first got its start in the 1930s, both men and women rolled onto the track. Since the sport’s resurgence in the early 2000s, however, it has been dominated by women.

Indianapolis was introduced to roller derby in 2007 by way of the Naptown league, which has bouts at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. When Naptown got its start, so did several novice skaters and referees. Roller Dex, as Jeremie Dexter was then known (he now skates under his new skating moniker, Dexter), was one of NRG’s main referees.

In those early days, we were all teaching each other our new sport. Some were learning to skate; others were perfecting their skills. At some point, a handful of women with different goals than NRG’s leading ladies broke off to create their own league, CCS, in 2008. This new somewhat-more-recreational organization brought a double-dose of derby to this already sports-friendly city — boon for fans.

Soon after, Dexter joined the new league’s coaching staff, but he, too, had his own goal: To play. By 2009, with the go-ahead from the CCS skaters, the Race City Rebels team was born.
 
Wanted: A few good men

That team boasts about 10 members. Though the men train and skate in coed practices and bouts, Dexter wants the team to compete regionally and nationally against other male-only teams. For now, modern-day roller derby is mostly a women’s sport. With about 350 all-women leagues and just 10 men’s leagues in the U.S., Dexter hopes his group will inspire more Midwest teams to form.

“Men’s derby isn’t as filled-in as women’s derby,” he said. “One can travel a few hours in any direction and encounter another female flat-track team. The nearest established male team to us is possibly the North West Arkansas Scaliwags, who, I think, are about eight hours away.”

There are rumors of a squad forming in Tennessee. But beyond that, the only other competitors take hours, if not days, to reach by car. Minnesota has a men’s team, as do Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, Florida, and Arizona. All long hauls for a fledgling group with few funds in its cache. But Dexter remains optimistic.

The team has established one of its members — also a founding member of the Race City Rebels — Ken “Devil Doc” Williams, as a “derby ambassador,” Dexter says, to hunt down potential opponents. In 2010, “we expect to have at least one doubleheader with the Socialites and, hopefully, some single-bout events as well,” he said.

Battle of the sexes

Someone recently referred to me as an “enforcer” for my Naptown team, The Tornado Sirens, where I’ve always been a blocker. I deliver the hardest hits I can muster during our bouts, and occasionally my aim is spot-on. At times, I have sent girls flying, sometimes crying, and I once accidentally knocked a girl out.

When I heard about the coed play, I wondered how different it would be. I suited up.

Though men are involved, the rules of the game are still the same. Two groups of four blockers each take off around the track when the first whistle blows. A second whistle sends the opposing jammers on their way; these speed-skaters race their way to the pack, hoping to make it through the mayhem first in order to earn lead jammer status.

After one pass through the pack, the jammers try to skate their way through again, the second time picking up a point for each opposing skater they legally pass. There are penalties for fouls — no tripping, punching or elbowing is allowed — and everyone has to stay inbounds.

Dexter believes there are two differences between men and women who play roller derby. He thinks women play smarter, using strategy to outwit their opponents, rather than using brute force. Men, he says, increase the level of aggression. “You can’t deny that men on average are physically stronger than women,” he said, “and that comes out in the way men approach the game.”

This, I admit, had me worried. I’ve taken enough falls in the past four years that a recent MRI on my knee showed I’d lost all the cartilage there. When I fall, it hurts. Bad. The truth is I should have given up skating by now. Eventually, I’ll need surgery, either one where doctors regrow cartilage and insert it into my knee, or — later — a knee replacement surgery after years of living without cushion there. I’m convinced I have at least one more season in me, though.

So, here, at Ellenberger Park, I’m ready to roll with the boys. I skate up to the starting line and wait. Devil Doc is beside me. I smile, insert my mouthguard and wait. The whistle sounds.

We’re off, and I’m instantly focused on the tasks at hand — stopping the opposing jammer; getting my jammer through. The jam, though it lasted two minutes, went by quickly. And so that’s what I found after playing with the fellas: Nothing much changes. They hit the same as some of our stronger girls hit. I feel no more or less fear than I do when skating up to the line with players of my own gender. And frankly, I was more thrown off by being on a different track and with a different team — one I couldn’t shout out instructions to because they wouldn’t understand my Naptown Roller Girls code.

What was cool, however: The fact that we were out there together in the first place, men and women side by side, giving a respectful nod to old-school derby and to the way the game used to be played.

Sherri Cullison, aka Touretta Lynn, is the author of “Roller Derby Art: Women, Wheels and Wicked Fun” (Schiffer Publishing, 2008). She also hosts Touretta Lynn’s School of Hard Knocks, skills-building classes for new and wannabe skaters.

Going?

Watch hard-hitting roller derby action, Halloween-style, in a coed bout Oct. 30, featuring members of the Circle City Socialites (girls) and Race City Rebels (guys) in costume. Dress up the kids, too — there’s a costume contest at halftime. Doors open at 6 p.m.; bout starts at 7.p.m. at Ellenberger Park Rink, 5301 E. St. Clair St. Tickets: $5 all ages, available at the door or circlecitysocialites.com