COVER
Skating back into Frederick: The c BY KHUSHBOO RATHORE krathore@newspost.com
Screeches of plastic against hardwood fill the room as a sweatdrenched skater flies around the edge of the track. Colorful makeup radiates above and below her eyes. With her left hand behind her back to preserve momentum, she sweeps through a long section of the track and comes up behind eight skaters. A referee skates beside her, right arm pointed toward her, left arm raised up in the air. She skates up to the pack, where four skaters match her in blue and another four look ready for battle in bright orange. She meets the bodies in orange first, pushing through them before rapidly tapping her hands on her hips, signaling that no more points can be won. The referee raises four fingers, the scorekeeper raises four fingers to confirm the point count, and the skaters leave the track. The woman with war paint slumps onto the floor, lying on her back in front of a massive fan. She pulls off her helmet, designed to look like a brain with the name “Zombabe” plastered across it. The skater, whose name is Sarah Hawks outside of derby, joined the Frederick Roller Derby team in February. She has played since 2014, when she was still in high school. Frederick Roller Derby is led by Jen Bennetch, aka Killadelphia, and Renee Yockelson, aka Robochop, who met on Hagerstown’s Mason-Dixon Roller Vixens team. Bennetch joined the Vixens in 2011 and had been on the team for six years before Yockelson joined. During their first practice together, each of them was wearing bottoms with cats on them. “We didn’t know each other, and we were just doing drills, and she was meowing at me,” Bennetch said. Just a couple months after that interaction, the two became “inseparable,” Bennetch said — so much so, that Yockelson was the maid of honor at Bennetch’s wedding. When the Roller Vixens didn’t return to bouts as soon as some players had wanted, Bennetch and Yockelson decided to start their own team, and Frederick Roller Derby was born last fall. 12
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Thursday, July 7, 2022
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72 HOURS
Staff photo by Bill Green
Frederick Roller Derby — in blue — compete in a bout at the Trinity Recreation Center.
THE GAME FRD plays “flat-track roller derby,” a style that is played on a level floor with an oval track marked with tape and rope. Since the game is a contact sport, safety is one of the first things that anyone learns before they start. Players wear thick knee pads, elbow pads, helmets and mouth guards while on the track. New skaters start out in the “Fresh Meat” program and learn the basics of skating, stopping and falling. FRD currently offers rolling enrollment in their program, where doing everything safely is extremely important, according to Wallis Shamieh, who joined the Frederick Roller Derby in April. Falling safely is one of the first skills they learn. The instinct is often to fall on your butt. But when playing derby, skaters have to learn to fall forward, onto their knee pads. Fresh meat start at different skills levels and must pass a safety test before they can play against other teams, Shamieh said. Devon Atkinson, aka Devastation, said she immersed herself into the derby world. The cancer researcher came to volunteer or watch as much as possible but ended up joining in. She finished the “Fresh Meat” program in seven months. She used to skate before joining the team but said she still spent her first practice mostly on the floor. She played in her first bout on May 21.
Staff photo by Bill Green
Frederick Roller Derby practicing. The new league is one of
THE PEOPLE Hawks said the variety of roles on a team, and the fact that every body type can be useful in the game, is one of the amazing aspects of derby. FRD’s team members come from many walks of life. Erica Coronel, aka Kause of Trauma, served in the U.S. Army and now works as a surgical technician. After having her third child, Coronel was suffering from post-partum depression to the point where she almost committed suicide in 2013. She joined the Los Angeles Renegade Rollergirls to get herself out of the state of “shut down” she was in, as she put it. The game is her form of therapy and helps get her aggression out. Bennetch and Coronel share the
same favorite thing about the game: being able to hit other people. “You just get to hit your friends in a safe way, and that’s really fun,” Bennetch said. Laurene Carlisle started derby in 2010. Known in the derby world as Hell B. Elby, Carlisle’s day job is in education. She was on the previous Frederick team, Key City Roller Derby, which left the city in 2016. Unlike the current team, Carlisle said, they didn’t have support from the city. Team members were working full-time jobs and had what felt like a second job keeping the team together, she said. She kept up her skating skills and endurance, so she was ready to join FRD and compete in bouts again. Even though Carlisle was still skating, she missed the team component and the
