Story by Savannah Gunter
Visuals by Jennifer Tran
TRACK 1: As Peak Auto Service in Apex closes shop, an assortment of folks carrying helmets, padding, and roller skates file into the long warehouse beside it. Three times a week, the space echoes with the sound of a Carolina Roller Derby practice.
<<Roller Skating Sound pop>>
TRACK 2: Before they hop on the track for this full-contact sport, athletes don roller skates, knee and elbow pads, wrist guards, helmets, and display wide, mouth-guarded smiles.
ASHLYN CLARK: “Because I like my pearly teeth to stay in my mouth.”
TRACK 3: Recent U-N-C Graduate Ashlyn Clark answers to a different name here– “Ash Whoopin.” She started playing Roller Derby during its early 2000’s revival and says the non-traditional sport often gets misconstrued.
ASHLYN CLARK: “Everyone always asks me if roller derby is like ‘Whip It,’ the early 2000’s movie–girls out there in fishnets and booty shorts –and it’s like well I am but it’s like, it’s for fun, not for your pleasure.”
TRACK 4: Clark says it’s a serious and rule-based sport with essentially a human ball–no joke. Deidre Newport, a mother, teacher and fifteen-year member of Carolina Roller Derby’s team, agrees that many fail to take it seriously.
DEIDRE NEWPORT: “Over the years the things people say to me…Oh do you just, like, punch people in the face or do you just like kick ‘em?”
<<Practice Sound Pop, then underneath>>
TRACK 5: Newport, is known as Fanny Pack-a-Punch–or Punch, for short. During games–which are called bouts–and practices, athletes are prepared to deal with some serious injuries. But, Newport says, it’s also a team sport centered in community.
DEIDRE NEWPORT: “I’m in my 40s, I wouldn’t normally have friends hanging out that are in their 20’s, but we have a bond through that.”
TRACK 6: Skater, mother, and sixth grade teacher Tonantzin Weathersby, known here as “Tenacious T,” says Derby highlights body positivity and inclusivity–two things she wants to teach her young sons and her students.
TONANTZIN WEATHERSBY: “I don’t want them to grow up thinking this is a girl thing or a guy thing—yeah, well what about everybody else who is neither–or both?”
TRACK 7: Longtime derby athlete Jess Rivera, or ‘Elastic’ says the sport now empowers more people than ever.
JESS RIVERA: “It was always diverse because it was counterculture, but now it’s a less straight, white dominated counterculture and that’s super important.”
TRACK 7: Rivera says despite her sport’s aggressive nature, this community cares for each other. Weathersby says this especially applies to new skaters.
TONANTZIN WEATHERSBY: “My first two weeks of practice, people were just walking me around the court, just holding my hands because I did not know how to skate.”
TRACK 8: These athletes celebrate falling and getting back up, and end each practice circled up with their–
<<chant “pinkies out, buttholes up”>>
TRACK 9: I’m Savannah Gunter, Reporting.
