Roller derby players hope to attract more people to sport

Dec 28, 2023

Frederick Roller Derby members Steph Doyle, left, Melanie West, center, and Sarah Redding demonstrate a roller derby move during “Get Rolling with Frederick Roller Derby” at the Walkersville Public Library on Sunday.

Frederick Roller Derby members Steph Doyle, left, Melanie West, center, and Sarah Redding demonstrate a roller derby move during “Get Rolling with Frederick Roller Derby” at the Walkersville Public Library on Sunday.

When Sarah Redding joined Frederick Roller Derby a year and a half ago, she hadn’t really skated much before.

Roller derby looked scary, she said. It also looked kind of cool.

On Sunday, Redding joined several of her teammates at the Walkersville Branch Library to try and help convince others to pick up the sport and join them.

At her first practice, Redding, whose derby moniker is Blue-Eyed Bruiser, learned the best way to fall – forward onto your kneepads, rather than backwards.

“Maybe I’m reading too much into it,” she said Sunday, but finding out that you could fall and get back up seemed like an important life lesson as well as an introduction into the derby world.

As a mom, she first joined as a way to get out of the house and do something on her own, she said. Now, though, she likes her daughter to come and watch. It’s a chance to see a group of women being assertive while also supporting each other and having fun, she said.

Sunday’s session, held in the asphalt parking lot at the rear of the library’s building, was just an overview of how people can get involved in roller derby, said Becca “Wrecka” Kennedy, who handles social media for Frederick Roller Derby.

There aren’t a lot of options for rinks or areas to practice around Frederick, Kennedy said. Her group uses the Trinity Recreation Center on New Design Road in Frederick. There are more rinks nearby, including two in Hagerstown, one in Laurel and one in Hanover, Pa., she said.

The contact aspect of derby isn’t for everyone, Kennedy acknowledged.

“It’s a polite way to get your aggression out. But we don’t try to hurt anyone,” she said. But there are things you can do to help stay safe.

A helmet, mouthguard, and pads for your elbows, knees, and wrists are important, said Melanie “Wild” West, skidding to a stop on her kneepads on the asphalt.

“I need to be able to put my body weight, and my bones, down on these pads,” she said.

Roller derby was first conceived in the early 1930s and remained popular in the United States into the 1970s, according to the website for the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, the international governing body of flat track roller derby.

Tracks were initially banked, but in the early 2000s the sport experienced a resurgence and began to be played on flat surfaces like roller skating rinks and other venues.

“Today, there are hundreds of roller derby leagues worldwide, and the sport has evolved into a highly competitive sport played by some of the world’s top athletes,” according to the association.

Even with its physical nature, the sport can be played by people of all ages,” Kennedy said.

“There’s no [age that is] too late to start,” she said.

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