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Women of roller derby not afraid to play a little rough
| Saturday, Aug 26 2006 4:45 PM
Last Updated: Monday, Aug 28 2006 9:07 AM
It's death on eight wheels, coming at you fast. The only thing slowing them down is the friction of the rubber stops on the tips of their roller skates, screeching hard against the rink at Rollerama on 34th Street.
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Rolling to a halt are devilish divas with names like Rosie O'Bomber, Jowanna Fite, Jenna Jacku-Up and Ima Blowbya, proving life can be more interesting on eight wheels.
They are the Bakersfield Rollergirls, Kern County's all-new, all-girl roller derby outfit.
"It's just fun," said Denice Smith, a part-time skater and full-time student at Bakersfield College. "It's great cardio. I watched the show (cable network A&E's reality series "Rollergirls") and I was like, 'It looks like fun!'"
Smith would later add that it's "cheaper than going to a gym" and "you get to hit people."
"I'm all about that," she nodded.
They're all about that, as well as about friendship, fun and getting out some aggression while doing it.
These are your Bakersfield Rollergirls.
SPIDER CRICKET
Smith will be part of a larger league created by fellow skater JoAnn Divers, also known as "Spider Cricket," an obnoxious insect found back East.
Petite, blonde and sweet-voiced, most wouldn't expect such a ruckus from Divers, but the large bruises and scrapes on her knee and shin tell another story. She skated from the top of a parking structure in Las Vegas and "ate it," taking a fall, and all the damage that entails.
"After I fell I did go all the way down," she quipped with a grin.
The injury hobbled her during practice, but Divers is dedicated to roller derby despite the fact she'd never partaken in the spectacle until recently. She got the idea to form a team after finding herself bored with a life of full-time work and full-time school.
"(I was) not having any fun," she said. "I just wanted to do something that was more active and fun, but there really wasn't anything here in Bakersfield to do."
Divers researched the history and rules of roller derby online, while contacting other teams and leagues that were up and running.
"It's really underground," Divers said of the rollergirls phenomenon. Teams have been fielded in Los Angeles, Fresno and San Diego.
Divers said more than 40 women have signed on for what will become the Bakersfield roller derby league. Once the participants are fully trained (and the league is able to drum up more sponsors and funding), Divers said the teams will be split into four, with each team consisting of 14 players.
There also would be an all-star team to play exhibition games with rival out-of-town teams and a separate team for novices ("a fresh meat group," Divers said) that the main teams will pull from occasionally for new talent.
"We're actually trying to get an exhibition together in October," Divers. "We're talking to (the team in) Fresno about setting something up, taking the best players and making an all-star team."
Divers hopes league play can start in a year.
THE REVENGE GIRL
As players, girls on the team get new aliases -- personas even.
Many women clad themselves in fishnets, ruffle skirts and a bad attitude because, in roller derby, it's about heart and artful aggression.
The group is diverse and represents women from all walks of life. Divers works for State Farm, "sitting in a cubicle all day long," she said, working on auto operations. Four of her co-workers are on the team. Others are college students, mothers, professionals and blue-collar workers.
Dezi Avila, 20, is known as Dezi Von Dropya on the team. By day, she works at McDonald's. Once off work, she becomes a skateboarder and a roller skater.
Her look is hard but cute and spunky. With dark hair spiked with color, she has a baby-doll face with a mean-girl squint.
She joined up with the rollergirls for one reason.
"My boyfriend," she snapped. "He told me I couldn't do it. I was like, you know what? I'll show you I can. ... Every blow. Every bang. Every bite. It's towards him. To show him I can do it."
Avila loves a challenge and said skating has helped her work out her inner turmoil by whipping it out onto others.
"So far, the aggressive side of me is coming out pretty good," she said. "I love to be active, taking out stress."
THE MEN OF ROLLERGIRLS
The Bakersfield Rollergirls have two coaches, Harry "Carey" Noroiam and James "Lefty" Winterroth. Noroian barks the orders and puts the girls through their paces, while Winterroth helps with their technique.
Noroian wound up coaching because he works at Rollerama, where the team holds its practices.
"It's a great sport," Noroiam said. "The action. The girls. The fights, well, not really the fighting. They're just bumping into each other and that's not so bad."
Noroiam echoed the sentiments of his players: "And it's a great, physical, healthy thing to do."
Winterroth, who earned his nickname from being an amputee, doesn't have much of a right arm but is a genius in skating skills.
Anytime someone needs help, he's beside her, skating backward, giving tips.
Ken Teasley is there when they fall down. His wife skates for the team and he's an emergency medical technician. He's done the work for four years and is a family man.
"I just like helping people. It's pretty satisfying."
The players are tough. He said they rarely let him know about their aches and pains.
"They really don't say anything," he said, adding that when he came on to help, he found sprains and knees that needed to be iced, minor wounds that needed cleaning and bandaging.
Even as he tends to their wounds, "they still never say anything about it."
Teasley, an athlete himself, said he admired the toughness of the women skating.
"It takes a lot of heart," he said.
BLACK-EYED GIRL
Skating around with a black eye, one she received during her first practice, is middle school teacher Tonya Warren.
Skating under the name Black Eyed Teeze, Warren is warm, chipper and friendly. The black eye seems out of place, but Warren wouldn't have it any other way.
She's an athlete. She loves to compete.
"It's exciting and there isn't a lot of sport league opportunities in Bakersfield for women," Warren said.
Warren, 35, went to Cal State Bakersfield on a softball scholarship. She's a mother of two, a 3-year old-son and a 5-month-old daughter. She's a seventh-grade English, reading and writing teacher.
Being on a roller derby team is a dream for Warren, who loves the sport and had her interest piqued by the A&E documentary series "Rollergirls."
The sport also busts some moldy old stereotypes of what women are and aren't.
"I'm an athlete. Do people expect us to be a bar maid?" Warren asked. "People have preconceived notions of how they expect women to act. ... (Some) think women couldn't run a marathon because they're too fragile. ... I don't think as many people are going to be as shocked. Women are viewed (as) stronger today that we used to be. We are mothers, businesswomen, professional women, but we can still go out there and play rough."
What is roller derby?
Roller derby is a series of races between two teams of five players. Each team has blockers, jammers and pivots.
• Jammers score points and race each other.
• Blockers try to keep opponents out of the way of their jammer.
• Pivots are the “pace cars,” keeping control of speed on the track. The pivot also calls plays, watches the jammers and acts as a blocker.
Jammers wear stars on their helmets, pivots wear stripes and blockers wear blank helmets.
The races are called jams and last for about two minutes.
Bakersfield Rollergirls
Info: 324-2324
online: www.bakorollers.com; www.myspace.com/bakersfieldrollergirls
e-mail: bakorollers@yahoo.com