Me, with my friend Gori Spelling--love her 90210 Helmet! | Source: Marc CamposThere’s a video tape of me somewhere at a friend’s fourth-grade birthday party. It was at a roller rink, and not only did I not know how to skate, but I was terrified—clinging to the wall and moving inch-by-inch around the rink. If you told that timid little eight-year-old me that one day not only would I be comfortable on skates, but that roller derby would be a huge part of my life, I would have called you a liar . . .but it’s true.
Today, when I enter the Doll Factory and hear the sound of roller skates on Masonite, I feel like I’m home. This is where the LA Derby Dolls–a roller derby league I volunteer with–play. When I started, we didn’t have a place to put our track, and were skating in a park; now we’ve got an enormous building to host our bouts, a giant fan base(and regular celebrity sightings), and admiration from derby leagues around the world.
What won me over about roller derby was that this sport is do-it-yourself: rules had to be written from scratch, women who hadn’t skated since they were in grade school were becoming serious athletes, friends were being recruited to help with whatever needed helping – and it wasn’t always clear what that was – and all the hard workwas being done in the name of fun. It was a real community of people doing something they loved, and to me? That’s pretty exciting.
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