How I Found, Roller Derby…

Have you ever hated yourself because you couldn’t fit inside societies little box? I have always been different and, for a while, I had this strong desire to just, fit in. Everyone finds Roller Derby at a different point in their lives. Some people, will honestly say they were saved by the sport. I found roller derby at a time in my life when I was frustrated with who I was. I wasn’t even comfortable in my own skin, and I felt like I didn’t have a place in the world. As a result, I was just kind of existing, but not living.

I moved a lot as a kid. From kindergarten to sixth grade, I attended six different elementary schools. I was also, very shy and quiet. Sports were how my parents got me out of the house. I was always good at sports, so long as the sport interested me. From first grade through college, I was always playing in some sort of club or team sport. At various points in my life, I participated in: soccer, tee ball, tennis, track, fencing, lacrosse, and team handball. Fencing and team handball were my collegiate level sports. I began to find more unique sports as a got older. For some reason, the less common or main stream the sport was, in the United States, the more passionate I was. So I guess, it was only a matter of time before I found roller derby.

As I mentioned in my, about me post, I didn’t see my first roller derby game till May of 2012. Leading up to that day, a lot had changed in my life, in a short period of time. I graduated college in May of 2011, moved to Missouri for a few months of job training, then immediately moved to Washington state to start my new job. Even though I was used to moving my whole life, I was not prepared for how drastic of a difference it would be to move without my family. I was suddenly on the West Coast for the first time in my life, while my parents and siblings were across the United States in New Jersey. The only person I knew, in Washington, was my roommate. Thankfully, he was a friend from college, was from Washington, and had family in the area. He kept me from drowning alone in my shyness. I say shyness, but lets be real, it was straight up anxiety towards social settings.

“Some people, will honestly say they were saved by the sport.”

On top of being on a new coast and far away from family, I was also in a weird place in life, in terms of understanding who I was. To be cryptically frank, I was one foot out of the closet and contemplating diving right back in. So while feeling a little lonely, a little unhappy, and a whole lot lost, an unexpected opportunity popped up. My roommates brother started dating a gal, who played roller derby, and wanted to get a group together to go see her next bout. My roommate extended the invite to me, and I was all for it, mostly because he was going, and I knew I could rely on him to make me feel less awkward in a social setting.

It was the day before the bout and suddenly everyone began to cancel their plans to go, including my roommate. The only two people available to attend were me, and my roommates brother. I didn’t know him too well, and everything in me wanted to also cancel. However, I really wanted to see roller derby! I was torn. In the end I stuck it out, and I’m so glad I did. Neither one of us knew what was going on, but we watched and I had a blast. I was fascinated by the names and the hard hits. It was like seeing Whip It in real life, and it made me so happy. The announcer mentioned that one of the teams was recruiting and right then and there I looked them up. The bug was planted. I wanted to join roller derby…

Tune in next time to hear how long it took me to follow through with that idea. I would like to hear what your first derby watching experience was like! Did you join first then watch a bout, or vice versa? Did it leave a lasting impression? Share your story in a comment below 🙂 Thanks for reading! -Jukes

This is my blog. There are many like it, but this one is mine…

PS: Please note, that my opinions held here, within this blog post and all future blog posts, are just that, my opinions. If you disagree with anything I say, please feel free to engage in respectful dialogue in the comment section below. I can also be reached at jukes@derbylisting.com. Thanks for joining me on my blog-venture!!

We Got Goals Y’all

Hello everyone, It’s Jukes and Richard again. As promised, at the end of Jukes’ About Me post, we’re back to give you all the low down on what some of our goals are at DerbyListing. First off, it is important for you all to know what the purpose is at DerbyListing.com.

DerbyListing is dedicated to providing skaters with an up to date list of all of the roller derby teams in the world. We strive to be a resource that skaters can use for their own analytical curiosities and research purposes. By doing so, we hope to foster a more connected roller derby community. 

A few goals that fall in line with this purpose are:

  • Maintain our list of derby teams (adding/retiring teams as needed)

  • Provide an easy to use interface

  • Promote our resource to the derby community

So we have listed our purpose and our goals, but now you probably want to know how we intend to live up to these standards. We’ve worked on getting ourselves organized and back on track over the last few weeks. We finally found time to power through a list of 129 possible new teams to add to the website, and will begin to add them to The List. As far as retiring teams, it’s a little overwhelming to think about scrubbing a list of 1,900+ teams every month. As a result, we are breaking The List down into bite size chunks and will conduct monthly scrubs on a smaller scale. As we scrub sections of the list we will announce updates/changes.

We are currently looking into ways to enhance the website’s visual appeal, and are always looking for ways to improve the general users experience. We ran a few tests for some of our ideas, but have not found what will work best for our site just yet. We will continue to research and will certainly share it, with you all, once we find the right fit for us.

Like with any good product, it’s of no use to anyone, if no one knows it exists. For this reason, we are trying to increase our social media presence. To help, we are going to announce all website updates on our Facebook page. To diversify, we started an Instagram page, where roller derby teams have a strong presence. We are also going to add a blog to our website. These steps will allow us to connect with the derby community on a greater scale and hopefully increase visitor feedback on The List. Visitor feedback on the status of teams is massively helpful and appreciated!

We hope this post was informative, and gave you all a better idea of what we are working towards here, at DerbyListing.com.

With Derby Love,
Team DerbyListing

About Me: The Jukes on You

My floating head…

Hello! I’m Jukes, and I’ve teamed up with Richard Hurton to help spread the word about the wonderful world of Roller Derby and to assist in giving you all an up to date and useful product. Richard has poured his heart and soul into making the most detailed and most inclusive list of roller teams from all over the world, and he does it because he enjoys doing it. I’m ridiculously excited to work on this project with him and hope it brings more connectivity and positivity to the derby community.

So, as titled, here’s a little about me. I first heard of roller derby back when the movie Whip It came out. Yep, I was one of those people that heard “roller derby” and immediately thought of Whip It. I will not lie though, I absolutely loved that movie; however, I could have been blinded by my massive crush on Ellen Paige. Either way, I’m still a huge fan of the movie.

Fast forward to 2011, (FYI, Whip It, came out in 2009) when I had my second encounter with roller derby. I was a week away from graduating college in New York when I saw a flyer for a roller derby bout. Unfortunately, the game was scheduled the weekend after my graduation and I was leaving the state right after the ceremony. I kept the flyer though. It really tugged at me that I was not able to attend.

It wasn’t until moving to Washington state, (I have learned to clarify state versus D.C.) in May of 2012, that I had my first opportunity to see live roller derby. It…was…awesome. I went to my first practice two days later and have been a part of roller derby ever since. We have such a unique community filled with endless diversity, and this fuels my motivation to reach out and connect with skaters around the globe.

Those of you, who are regulars to the site and the Facebook page may have noticed a few changes. Bare with us. We’re trying a few thing out and are working a few things to get the database updated and get the word out. Ultimately, we are striving to give you all the best product possible. Stay tuned for a future post that will outline some of the changes and goals we have here at DerbyListing.

Stay derby weird, peeps. – Jukes

About Me: Richard Hurton

I am Richard Hurton. Well, that’s my current derby name, at least.

I first heard about the resurgence of roller derby around 2003 via the Comedy Central show Insomniac with Dave Attell. I honestly didn’t think much of it. Looked like fun, but there wasn’t any roller derby in my town so I promptly forgot about it.

Then in 2006 my partner and I moved to the MidWest. She had reconnected with a highschool friend (thanks, Facebook) who conveniently lived at the half way point for the cross country move. I only mention this friend, because she was gung ho for roller derby, and was a skater on her local team. It got my partner excited to learn more about roller derby. Unfortunately, the small town we moved to didn’t have roller derby… so after a short while, I forgot all about it… again.

In 2009 we found ourselves moving again. This time to Salt Lake City. Prior to moving I had made contact with a person in SLC via LiveJournal (oh how I miss LiveJournal). She and her partner just happened to be the announcers for the local roller derby team (Salt City Derby Girls). Through them we finally made it to our first derby bout! A little late to the party, but at least we made it.

We went to a few more bouts, but 2009 was a tumultuous year for roller derby in Salt Lake City. The local league split. Out of that split emerged Wasatch Roller Derby (WRD). Alongside WRD a recreational league started, The Red Rockettes. By coincidence one of the founders of the rec league happened to be one of the first people we met in Salt Lake City.

In 2010/2011 my partner decided that she would give recreational roller derby a go. I, in full support of my partner, volunteered to NSO. And thus began our deep dive into roller derby.

My original roller derby name was Unkle Sammich. Later, I decided to complement my partner’s derby name, Liz Tailher; so I changed my derby name to Richard Hurton. If you still don’t get the connection, google “Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton”.

In 2012 I started researching derby leagues around the world. I wanted to get a better idea of how many leagues played under the different rulesets. That research eventually resulted in this website.

–Richard Hurton