Loud music, cold beer and f-a-s-t women

By Allan Nussbaum

Issue date: 4/21/06 Section: Back Page

Originally published:

Last update:

Mix some heavy metal music, snack bar nachos, ladies on skates and what have you got? Roller derby!

But beware, this is not the roller derby your parents watched in the '60s.

Roller derby these days has a feminist, rock 'n' roll, punk, in-your-face twist to it, and it's back the third Sunday of every month through September at the Rollercade at 223 Recoleta.

Cate Compton, skating as "Nita Spankin," is an attorney in San Marcos who helped start the local league after attending a roller derby match in Austin last year.

"We started last May, and this is our first season," she said.

Roller derby as a sport looks like a chaotic gang fight on wheels and has a lot of the same appeal found in NASCAR and WWF wrestling.

In San Antonio, roller derby is a female-only league, sporting four teams: the Missyfits, the Dragon Divas, the Violations and the Prim Reapers.

Participants sport names such as "Yoko Hellno," "Kitty Glitter," "Matza Brawl," "Mega Hurtz," "Apolcalypstick," "Barbara Coa" and "Honey Musthurt."

The sport has three main positions: pivots, blockers and jammers. The object of the game is for one team's jammers to pass the other team's blockers.

The action - based on four 14-minute periods separated by a 30-minute halftime - can get rough. During the match April 9, the announcer even had to admonish the teams when he said, "Remember, girls, fighting is not allowed."

Participants wear helmets, knee and elbow pads and attend training and practice sessions before they can participate in a match. Members also have to purchase supplemental insurance in the event they get hurt.

Despite the risk, there is no shortage in the number of women willing to strap on skates.

Compton said, "We have about 80 girls right now and we're always recruiting."

The card on April 9 drew a crowd of almost 600 fans who not only enjoyed the roller derby but the live music before and during the match as well.

A local band, The Martyrs, opened, treating the crowds to some Texas-style heavy-metal, and the halftime show featured the band Double Clutch.

Yuppie types mixed in with construction workers, and families with kids sat next to students sporting dyed hair and tattoos. Some members of the audience were as interesting as the main event unfolding in front of them.

One animated fan was Emanuel Easterling, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army who is stationed at Fort Sam Houston as a physical therapist.

In between yelling at the referees for missing violations against his team, Easterling said, "I've got a friend whose wife skates. That's how I got started watching. Now I'm real involved in the action."

Spectators can sit or stand on the floor next to the action with nothing separating them from the skaters whizzing by on an elliptical track. Referees are stationed in the center of track.

Skaters regularly tumble outside the track, sending spectators scattering.

Jaime Sanchez brought along his wife Jessica and their 4-year-old son M.J.

Sanchez sipped a cold beer while the family enjoyed the rough-and-tumble action only a few feet in front of them.

"We're watching them pound on each other," Sanchez said as M.J. mimicked some of the skaters. "That's the fun part."

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