Skaters of the Underground: Gotham Girls Roller Derby
Writing by Sandy Mui, Video by Michelle Simon
Roller derby is a sport that has its roots from the days of the Great Depression, but is largely unknown to the public.
The high-paced, energizing sport has survived to this day, and one roller derby league that exists today is New York City’s Gotham Girls Roller Derby.
Though roller derby is not a popular sport, it still has striking similarities to mainstream sports like basketball, football, and volleyball.
“Roller derby is a lot different [from other sports], but I think that the idea of athleticism is still there and that the idea of working hard and working with a team,” said Karen Williams, a member of Gotham Girls’ Bronx Gridlock team. She has been playing roller derby for five years and is entering her third year with Gotham Girls.
Williams has played a variety of sports her whole life, but all of them require the same thing: teamwork. “Most of the stuff that I’ve done outside of track and field (volleyball and basketball) is a team sport in the sense that you train with a team,” she said. “I really like the team sport aspect of in terms of basketball, volleyball, and roller derby… you can’t play it by yourself.”
According to Gotham Girls Roller Derby’s website, “Well-played roller derby requires agility, strength, speed, control, peripheral vision, communication, and teamwork.” This isn’t surprising, considering the setup of roller derby allows each team to have five players on the field.
Gotham Girls, NYC’s nonprofit roller derby league, was established in 2003. Since then, the league has been Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) World Champions five times.
Unlike sports leagues in other sports though, Gotham Girls is divided into various districts that allow players to choose the level they wish to compete in.
“What’s really great about Gotham is that we have a lot of different levels that people can do the sport,” said Williams. Gotham is comprised of four home teams (the Bronx Gridlock, Brooklyn Bombshells, Manhattan Mayhem, and Queens of Pain). These teams play within the league and compete within the city.
The league also has three inter-league teams that compete nationwide. The league’s rookies (the Diamond District) also occasionally compete regionally.
The various levels within the league allow for flexibility, which makes roller derby not too much of a commitment for players. However, the sport can still be tough for players in other ways.
“It can be a very demanding sport in terms of time,” said Williams. “It’s very demanding in terms of your body and staying fit because of the physicality of the sport. So it demands a lot of body meat and really being in tune with your body.”
This, coupled with the fact that many roller derby players balance other obligations, can contribute to a challenging lifestyle. “The hardest part [of roller derby] sometimes… is just coming to practice,” said Williams. “We practice late sometimes. During the weekdays, Mondays to Fridays, 7 to 9 o’clock at night. And that’s after a full day’s worth of work… that’s difficult.”
As an “underground sport,” roller derby is played for fun, for the most part. “A lot of us have to be up the next morning early,” said Williams. “A majority of the people have real careers and daytime jobs and responsibilities.”
That isn’t to say that roller derby is too time-consuming that it cannot be added to your daily routine. “Don’t knock it till you try it” applies to most things in life, and roller derby should not be excluded from this list.
“You don’t know if it’s for you or not until you try it,” said Williams. “You know, a lot of people come and look at it for the first time and they’re completely blown away.”
