Femme Fatale Fitness
With roller derby and female football teams popping up all over the country, women’s full-contact sports are finally giving the tough a chance to get going.
Move over, Serena Williams. Outta the way, Danica Patrick. Make room for Samantha Grisafe and Suzi Uzi.
Grisafe, 24, a quarterback for the Chicago Force tackle football team and Uzi, co-founder of the Red Dirt Rebellion Rollergirls roller derby league in Oklahoma City, are on the cutting edge of a trend in team female sports that is as popular as it is tough.
“We had two dislocated shoulders and one concussion in one game in July,” says Uzi, 24, a graphic designer whose real name is Emily Murray. “I did Tae Kwon Do for eight years and roller derby is the toughest sport I've ever played. But that’s why I like it. We go to practice and beat the crap out of each other for three hours and go out and have a beer afterward.”
Women’s tackle football, Grisafe says, is just as fast as the men’s game.
“You really have to be on your toes,” she says, “because you never know what is going to be thrown at you.”
While women’s football can look a lot like the men’s game, Shannon Kobylka, a skater for the Flight Crew, a member of the Los Angeles Derby Dolls league, says roller derby is an outlet for women who want to be themselves.
“Roller derby allows you to physically push yourself and still be able to show off a feminine side,” says Kobylka, 30, who uses the moniker of Janis Choplin on the track.
Leagues of back-cracking, roller skating tough ladies you might otherwise bring home to meet your mother, the Red Dirt Rebellion Rollergirls and L.A. Derby Dolls are two of just five roller derby leagues in the country that skate on a banked track. The U.S. is home to 400 flat-track roller derby leagues.
“Undoubtedly, roller derby is one of the fastest growing sports for women, and that doesn't include the international leagues,” says Tae Kwon Ho, the publicist for the L.A. Derby Dolls, whose fans fill a 2,000-seat facility every game.
Roller derby spawned an A&E series and an upcoming film by Drew Barrymore, “Whip It,” which will feature a number of Derby Dolls in supporting roles. On the gridiron, the Chicago Force is a member of the Independent Women's Football League, the most popular of the women's football leagues. IWFL players will make up the roster of the USA Football Women's National Team for international competitions.
“We began in 2000 with four teams and the league has seen steady growth each year since,” says Kezia Disney, chief operating officer of the IWFL, based in Round Rock, Texas. “Currently the IWFL has 51 teams playing in two tiers nationally.”
The IWFL fields teams in cities large and small, from the Boston Militia and Seattle Majestics to the Central Pennsylvania Vipers and the Corvallis (Ore.) Pride. Games are played on high school fields and larger venues, in full pads, to crowds of up to 1,500.
Roller derby teams are raucous and flashy, sporting names like Varsity Brawlers and Motley Cruisers. Murray's Red Dirt Rebellion Rollergirls sports a logo of a skull in pigtails in a cowboy hat.
“The best part is skating in front of thousands of people hearing them scream your name,” Murray says.
As you might guess, there is no such thing as a “typical” player in either sport. Many split their time between college, career, family and love of the game.
“We have 18-year-olds right out of high school, college students, attorneys, MDs, police officers, military and stay-at-home moms,” Disney says of the female football players.
When the competition begins, though, differences in age and occupation wilt under the bright lights.
“One of the things I love about it is that I'm a bartender and actress who can tell a lawyer to move her ass on the field,” Grisafe says.
Unlike many of her colleagues, Grisafe played football from the age of 10, even becoming the first girl in California to play quarterback on her high school varsity team.
But when she graduated, she found something missing in her athletic life. It's a feeling Murray, Kobylka and other women share. Tackle football and roller derby, it seems, fill that void.
And while championships are not guaranteed, players in both sports feel like winners with new friends and better fitness.
“Roller derby is an excellent workout. I have gained a lot of endurance and increased my total body strength since I have been skating,” says Kobylka. “It is an environment where strong athletic women are accepted and embraced. I also have 90-plus strong females I can turn to when I need them, whether it is to learn a new roller derby skill or strategy or when I need someone to talk to about life in general.”
Of course, workouts can be hard work. Teammates on the Force, whose season runs from April through late July, start working out together three times a week in November, no picnic in Chicago. Full practices start in January, twice a week for two and a half hours, in full pads.
“I always call the guys in the NFL wusses,” Grisafe laughs. Her team practices without the big heaters or cooling fans on the benches their male counterparts often enjoy.
Roller derby has always been a sport for women, even during its first inception in the ‘30s, Kobylka says. Many of the women who skate in the derbies today also occupy leadership roles in the hundreds of active leagues worldwide.
And while men founded football, Grisafe says “that doesn't mean that it's supposed to always be that way. There are tons of things that women weren't allowed to do and we've proved them wrong. If you go out and watch a game, you couldn't even tell it's women on the field.”
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