The women of Eugene’s roller derby team, the Emerald City Rollergirls, know how to skate fast and fall hard. Society, however, often focuses on their ability to accomplish these while wearing short skirts and fishnet stockings. But these athletes want to set something straight: They sweat, bleed and push their bodies for the sake of the game, not the outfits.
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View video from the derby practice
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“It’s really frustrating to put so much physical effort behind a sport and have people say, ‘Oh, that’s just staged, and it’s just girls in short skirts.’ They have no idea how hard we work,” said Adrienne van der Valk, a team member and University graduate student.
The Emerald City Rollergirls, formed in January and now at 40 members, are holding a benefit show Wednesday night at 9 p.m. at the Indigo District, located at 1290 Oak St. The team is looking to recruit new members and show off what the women have learned so far.
“I really enjoy the athleticism of it. I’ve never been good at sports, ever, and this is the only thing I’ve started going to and loved everything about it,” said van der Valk, also known as “Valentina Slaughter” in the derby world.
Every player has a derby name that reflects something brutal, van der Valk said, adding her name came from what she thinks she would be called if she were a female pirate in a romance novel.
Van der Valk said she would love for more University students to join the team and thinks this is the perfect opportunity to bridge the gap between the University population and Eugene at large.
“It’s all I can think about, and it seems that happens with a lot of the women on the team,” said Grace Golden, a University senior.
Golden, also known as “Surly Q,” said she understands the sport was once showy in the spirit of a World Wrestling Entertainment match, but that’s not how the sport is today.
“It seems like it has a reputation of being the seedy, underground scene,” she said. “We’re not just a bunch of whores on wheels wanting to beat each other up.”
Van der Valk said there were some women’s roller derby movies made in the 1970’s with questionable themes, giving rise to associations of pornography with the sport, something she and other teammates want to challenge.
The sport of roller derby stemmed from dance marathons held during the Great Depression, where hundreds of people would flock and skate around, enticed by cash prizes.
The marathons, founded by film publicist Leo Seltzer, turned into roller skating challenges in 1935 when he created the first Transcontinental Roller Derby, lasting more than a month and held at the Chicago Coliseum, according to the Roller Derby Foundation Web site.
“Women, some bruised and battered in unhappy marriages would come to the game, scream all night at the performers, then leave the arena with the hope that they, too, would triumph one day. In many ways, both simple and profound, the Roller Derby was about hope,” the Roller Derby Foundation Web site reads.
The popularity of the sport grew until the early 1970’s when interest fizzled. But in the last couple years, the sport has begun rapidly popping back up across the country. Today there are 205 amateur roller derby leagues in the U.S., according to the Roller Derby Worldwide Web site.
“There are grassroots organizations that spring up and reflect the personalities and values of that community,” van der Valk said. “I think there is just a real absence in this kind of athletic activity for women. A lot of the women sports are seen as a women’s version of men’s teams.”
Golden agreed part of the appeal of roller derby is that it’s run and orchestrated by women on both the athletic and administrative sides of the sport.
“Women notice it’s fun and it’s this new wave of feminism,” she said.
A few women on the team have suffered injuries, such as a broken ankle, and van der Valk went to urgent care last week for a hard fall on her elbow, but Golden said these risks come with any sport.
“You have to be tough – take good hits and give them too,” she said.
Wednesday’s event will include performances from the Dead Americans, the Soothsayers and Ugly Litter. The show begins at 9 p.m. and tickets are on a sliding scale from $3-5.
For more information on the Emerald City Rollergirls, check out their MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/emeraldcityrollergirls.
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