As the Philly Roller Derby Juniors All-Stars team skated timed laps during practice at the Northeast Racquet Club’s arena this month, they generated a wind so strong it felt like it could have carried a hang glider to South Philly.
“Going really fast makes you feel so powerful,” said Ethan “I-Roll” Garrity, a 15-year-old player from Roxborough. “You can get going so fast that you’re just on the edge of spinning out of control, but you’re not, and it just feels so cool.”
The members of the Philly Roller Derby Juniors — an all-gender contact sport team for area youth — are not just a force of nature, they’re a force to be reckoned with.
After crushing the Pittsburgh Derby Brats in the regional playoffs last month 448 to 139, the All-Stars are ranked as the number-one seed in the open, or coed, division as they head into the Junior Roller Derby Association’s 2022 Championships in Phoenix, Ariz., July 30 and 31.
What makes this team so incredible, according to players, coaches, and parents, is its familial atmosphere and its inclusivity. Players on the All-Stars team range in age from 13 to 18 and include teens who identify as male, female, trans, and gender-fluid.
“In a world that seems to have a lot of things going in the opposite direction, it’s a wonderful and comforting exception,” said Garrity’s father, Chris.
Player Elena Liu, 13, who identifies as gender-fluid and plays under the name “Bad Blood,” which is the title of a Taylor Swift song, said roller derby has taught them not to look at anyone and assume they’re better or worse than they are because of their gender or gender expression.
“I play with boys and I was born female, so in society I would be seen as weaker or less, but in here I’m like ‘I don’t care, I’m going to hit them.’ I see them on the same level as me,” Liu said. “I think because it’s a coed sport we all treat each other a lot better, and I think it builds character within all of us.”
Coaches Faith “Devoida Mercy” Cortright and Beth “Teflon Donna” Mast, a married couple who met while playing on Philly’s adult All-Stars team, the Liberty Belles, said the word acceptance has never even been spoken among their players.
“The kids see it as love. When they learn something new about one of their teammates, they welcome it. That’s different from saying ‘I should accept everybody,’ ” Cortright said. “They’re so past that.”
After seeing junior teams in other leagues, Mast and Cortright founded the Philly Roller Derby Juniors as an all-girls program in January 2014 with 23 players.
“Going really fast makes you feel so powerful.”
Today, the program boasts almost 70 players, from ages 6 to 18. The novice skaters play each other, often separating into two teams they call the Philadelphia Scream Cheese and the Philly Tastyskates.
The 20 members of the traveling All-Stars team, who’ve chosen killer derby names to play under like Cookies n’ Scream, Pass-a-Fist, and Tail-Her Swift, travel the country — from Florida to California — to play other teams. One All-Star flies in from South Carolina to practice with the team every Sunday and another comes from Manhattan, since there are no coed leagues in his area.
Players pay monthly dues to cover the rental fees for practices at the Northeast Racquet Club’s arena in Bustleton, and skaters on the All-Stars team are responsible for their own travel expenses. It’s a labor of love for the players and their parents, but one they say is well worth it to be a part of this second family.
“Every Sunday I’m with them I get to escape my school life and be a different person,” Liu said. “You know they’re all going to love you, and that’s never going to change.”
“You know they’re all going to love you and that’s never going to change.”
During the program’s second year, the coaches approached the players and parents about making the team coed. When the votes were counted, all but one player and their parent supported the decision.
“That allowed open-gendered skaters to come to us because there were no other opportunities,” Cortright said. “By us playing in the open division now, gender is never a discussion because it doesn’t matter.”
For Liu and other members of the team, that’s a welcome change in the world of sports.
“It’s always divided, and it’s always divided into men and women, so think of the stress that puts on gender-neutral people to pick one,” they said. “In roller derby, that’s not an issue because literally everyone is accepted.”
Mast said playing on an open-gender team helps skaters prepare for the real world.
“When they get a job, they’re not going to be separated by gender,” she said. “These kids are getting to grow up and experience that they can do amazing things, that it doesn’t matter the gender of their opponent, there are ways you can outmaneuver and outsmart.”
Open-gender junior roller derby is not popular only in Philly. Of the 84 teams registered with the Junior Roller Derby Association, 74 are in the open division and just 10 are female-only, according to Liz Ross, head of membership for the association.
Liu’s father, Jeffrey, said it’s a “very egalitarian space for kids.”
“In the ‘70s, roller derby was a space for women’s liberation and defining feminism,” he said. “I think the roller derby of today takes that theme and athleticism and also adds the boy, girl, trans, and gender-fluid space. It doesn’t matter who you are. All we care is: Can you skate?”
Roller derby’s resurgence began in Austin, Texas, around 2003. Instead of the banked tracks popular in the ‘70s, players now skate on flat tracks. Each team has four blockers and one jammer on the track during game play. The jammer earns a point for each opposing player they pass, and the blockers try to stop the other team’s jammer from scoring.
Punching is no longer allowed, but players can still use their hips, shoulders, and other body parts to nudge — or slam — into their opponents.
“We’re going to hit you, but we’re not going to be mean to you,” Garrity said.
Above all, the Philly Roller Derby Juniors said they value positivity on and off the track.
“Even when our opponents are not being positive to us, it’s very important to us to keep it positive and keep it kind because that’s what we expect from other people, and that’s what people should expect from us,” Garrity said.
But don’t get it wrong, these players are fierce and those who underestimate them are in for a rude awakening.
“Being a trans athlete, it just feels like nobody really expects anything from you. … I think sometimes there’s this feeling that I get, especially when I play cis boys, they just look at me like ‘I know that I can beat you,’ and I’m like ‘No, you don’t,’ ” Garrity said. “When they look at me they don’t see the amount of work I do, and it backfires because we win — a lot.”
The All-Stars’ record this year is 11-1. Their only loss was to an all-female team, so it doesn’t count against their ranking in the open division at the championships, where they’re marking their third appearance. They came in sixth in 2018 and second in 2019.
The team was on its way to qualifying for the championships in 2020, before COVID-19 and quarantine hit.
During that time, Mast and Cortright set up some track in their Fishtown apartment and ran practices via Zoom in their dining room. Players virtually joined them from their garages, parking lots, and playgrounds, but it wasn’t the same.
When in-person practices resumed in June 2021, the team lost several players. Some aged out and some just never came back. Only five of this year’s All-Stars were on the previous team.
But something else happened during quarantine, too — many new kids picked up roller-skating because you could do it outside and by yourself, Cortright said. Today, the league has surpassed its pre-pandemic enrollment.
“It doesn’t matter who you are. All we care is: Can you skate?”
McKenna “Crash” Reber, 18, of Williamstown, N.J., one of the five returning All-Stars, has been with the program since inception, when she joined at age 9. Her original derby name was “Rainbow Crash,” a nod to the My Little Pony character Rainbow Dash, but she shortened it as she got older.
This year’s championships will mark the last for Reber with the league she’s grown up in, a league which she said has helped her grow, too.
“A lot of people don’t get to experience what it’s like to work with people from different races, religions, sexualities, and genders, but here, we get to learn what everyone is like,” said Reber, who’s heading to Cabrini College this fall. “And I think that will help me be a better person in the future.”