Women on skates are all the rage
When Shanks a Million and Betty BiteMe get together for some mother-daughter time, they like to lace up their skates, hit the streets and talk roller derby.
The Santa Cruz residents both skate for the Santa Cruz Derby Girls, but on different teams. Shanks is a blocker for the Harbor Hellcats. Her teenage daughter, Betty, skates multiple positions for the Gromshells, the league’s premier under-18 team. They’re just a couple of gals who have bonded over flashy tights, protective gear and flat-track mayhem.
“It’s fun. It’s something we can relate about,” says Betty (Asarrah Bohbot), a senior at Soquel High School and captain of the league’s junior division. “Skaters as a group are really empowered women. It’s been really good growing up around that.”
“It’s a special thing to do together,” says Shanks (Sabrina Bohbot), a registered nurse and information technology specialist. “I’m a huge fan of hers, and she likes that I skate. She thinks it’s cool. I’m forever grateful to roller derby that my teenager doesn’t think I’m a complete moron.”
Women’s roller derby has been around since the Great Depression, waxing and waning in popularity over the decades. But in many places the sport is on the rise, and being transformed by skaters who have turned it into a grassroots athletic league.
Santa Cruz is a hotbed of roller derby, with three women’s teams — the Boardwalk Bombshells, the Harbor Hellcats and the Seabright Sirens. The Santa Cruz Derby Girls’ junior league also fields three teams: the Gromshells, the Sugar Skulls and the Bumper Scars.
The Bombshells are ranked No. 22 among the 205 teams recognized by the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, which includes teams from London, Paris and Oslo, as well as every region of the U.S. The Bombshells reached the Division I playoffs for the first time this year, and will compete in the final tournament on Sept. 5 in Sacramento. And the Gromshells are acknowledged to be one of the top youth teams in Northern California.
“Derby is the fastest-growing women’s sport in the world,” says Sharon D. Payne (Eileen Hill), co-captain of the Boardwalk Bombshells. “And it’s huge in Santa Cruz. We are lucky to have a really supportive fan base here.”
The theatrical and sporting aspects of roller derby make it a natural fit for Santa Cruz. It’s a town where alter egos, outrageous attire and street theater are everyday fare. And local sports events are hugely popular, often drawing sold-out crowds to the city’s new Kaiser Permanente arena.
For years the Derby Girls played exhibition bouts at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, though the Civic’s floor was too small for regulation play. But in 2012 the city of Santa Cruz partnered with the Golden StateWarriors to build a temporary sports arena downtown, and in 2013 the Derby Girls moved to the new Kaiser Permanente arena, which is big enough to hold 2,500 fans and a regulation-size track.
Investing in a downtown sports facility was a controversial move for the city of Santa Cruz. The city helped finance the tentlike structure and brokered a deal to build it on one of the Beach Boardwalk’s employee parking lots. Not yet 2 years old, the facility is already acknowledged to be a success, upgrading an edgy section of downtown into a popular destination for developmental-league basketball, school sports tournaments and of course, roller derby.
The current resurgence of the sport began in 2000 with a radical organizational reworking. Instead of a national league stocked with a handful of investorowned teams, the new roller derby is a volunteer-led effort with hundreds of grassroots teams.
The motto of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association is “By the skaters, for the skaters,” and the outrageous scripted play of earlier years has been replaced by standardized rules and rankings.
In Santa Cruz, adult players are required to serve on a league board or committee, and some also coach the younger players. And when the team’s portable skating floor has to be removed from the arena after a game, everyone pitches in.
Santa Cruz Derby Girls are nurses, teachers, tech workers, college administrators, hairstylists and stay-at-home moms. Several of the players work for a public relations firm, where injuries can have an upside.
“Bruises are a talking point,” says Harbor Hellcat Raven Von Kaos (Evie Smith), senior director at 43 PR in Santa Cruz, who tweets under the handle @derbyhurts. “And sometimes my scrimmage number lingers on my arm. People will ask, “Do you do marathons?” And I’ll say, “Not exactly.’ ”
The youth skaters, ages 10 through 17, come from a variety of local schools and sports backgrounds. Some also play soccer, basketball or water polo, and come from as far afield as Hollister and Cupertino.
But for many, derby is the only sport — an irreplaceable combination of athleticism, team bonding and creative selfexpression.
“To me (derby) is equally a sport and a community,” says Page Turner (Gwendolyn O’Keefe), whose derby name reflects her honor-student proclivities. “It’s great to get out and skate hard and blow off steam. But there’s also a bond between derby girls all across the world. We’re a family.”
The Santa Cruz league’s practice facility, in a vacant tech campus, has an edgy clubhouse vibe. The track on the polished concrete floor is outlined with pink tape, and a row of steel I-beams down the middle of the room are wrapped with gym mats and duct tape. A row of surplus church pews lines one side of the room, and a secondhand sectional sofa supports a gaggle of teenagers, alternately lounging and roughhousing.
At a recent youth league practice, some 40 girls cut their workout short to say goodbye to coach Mercyful Kate, who was moving to Seattle.
“Be kind to the new coach,” Mercyful told the girls, who laughed gleefully in response.
“No! Weed out the weak!” one girl called out, to a chorus of cheers.
There’s a move in some quarters to professionalize roller derby, with a handful of teams abandoning the players’ traditional noms de guerre, adopting matching uniforms and emphasizing athleticism. But the Santa Cruz Derby Girls, while formidable skaters, are not ready to give up their cat ears, purple hair and other embellishments.
“There is definitely a place for uniformity, athleticism and professionalism,” says Shanks. “There is also a lot of room for the fun, tradition and self-expression of roller derby. That’s where the sport came from, and there should always be an aspect of that for the skaters and the fans.”