Roller Derby Saved My Soul and Other Myths

Almost everyone in derby's seen the ROLLER DERBY SAVED MY SOUL t-shirts; it references the title (and chorus) of a song in which the glorious attributes of ass-kickin' derby skaters are extolled. But in the song, though, at least to my understanding, the person whose soul gets saved isn't the skater -- it's the dude watching from the sidelines.

So how did this phrase become this rallying cry for roller derby, exactly? I get that roller derby can be an empowering thing for skaters of all genders; I've seen skaters get into derby and discover their inner badasses and it can do some good work for a lot of people (or, alternatively, people can do good work with it).

But at the same time, there is a part of me that wonders exactly how much of a disservice the starry-eyed cliche of how much roller derby saves our collective souls does to people who are like, Uh, this is my hobby. I do this for fun, and that's it -- especially for officials. 

In the six or so years I've been officiating, I've seen more officials retire than skaters, and I think that's pretty telling, because at some point it stops becoming fun ... and the rate at which it becomes not-fun for officials seems, at least from my perspective, significantly faster than it is for skaters. 

One of the overwhelming things that officials seem to state why they leave is that they're fed up. They're tired of being treated badly, or as lesser somehow, or they get tired of politics or internal drama -- because the myth that officials don't have drama is just that; a huge myth -- and I've been thinking about this point a bit lately, what with yet another change to the ruleset and derby evolving again, and where I am in it.

One of the things I've always liked about derby is that it isn't a static sport; it's evolving and changing. And at the same time, those changes -- at least to the rules -- are skater driven and are things we have little to no input on. Most of the time, that's fine for most officials, but sometimes it isn't.

And we need better spaces to talk about those points without fear of retaliation or backlash or butthurt.

As officials, we evolve and change too. Some of us go independent because our leagues are sucking the life out of us or we don't feel supported or, goddamn it, we're just tired. Or we transfer leagues because there's a skater making our life hell, or we feel frustrated and disrespected and have to change something, and it's easier to change who you work with than it is to change people's minds about policy when their answer is "But this is the way we've always done it."

Sometimes the way you've always done it doesn't work anymore.

Some of us stop working tournaments; some of us decide never to work tournaments in the first place. Some of us want to work the tournaments but don't get accepted for whatever reasons. Some of us get frustrated with the fact that it's always the same people working as tournament head refs and making decisions about who gets to work and where, but with no seeming oversight. Some of us decide not to work with certain people anymore, and that's got to be recognized as a valid choice too. (Leagues? Tournament organizers? Listen to officials when they tell you these kinds of things.)

And these things get talked about behind the scenes, but never in public, because we don't want to seem negative or biased or like we're complaining. But really, the behind-the-scenes is mean and critical; I've been called plenty of nasty things by fellow officials who didn't think that I was in earshot or that it wouldn't get back to me. And I recently got harassed so nastily via private message by a fellow official that I finally ended up reporting him for code of conduct violations because I am just super out of patience with people being nasty and thinking they're untouchable because, hey, we're just officials and it's a hobby. It doesn't matter, does it?

But, you know what? It matters.  It might be a hobby, but that doesn't give you free reign to be a jerk.

Here's another myth: we don't all like each other. Those bouts that don't flow? Yeah. Sometimes that's why. I work with people I don't like and don't trust all the time, because that's what you sometimes have to do as a working adult. I imagine it's the same for skaters, frankly; you don't love everyone on your team all the time (or ever) and people trash-talk just as much there (and sometimes even on the track where we can hear you).

But here's the thing: at some point, people get tired of all of it and it isn't fun any more. Derby is demanding and expensive and awesome and disappointing, and at some point the highs don't counteract the lows any more. It's hard to walk away from a hobby that takes more out of you than the average hobby (and we kind of kid about it, about how the derby monster eats your life, but what happens when you tell the derby monster you're done with your life being dinner?). 

I had an epiphany that prompted me to quit the Men's Roller Derby Association late last year, an organization I was part of and supported even in the previous incarnation, back when it was a coalition and there were four men's teams in it. 

The epiphany was simple: if things were this bad at a job, I'd quit. 

So I did.

I quit an organization that I'd been part of since it started -- since before it started, in fact -- because being part of it was making me miserable. I took my MRDA patch off my ref uniform and was surprised that I didn't feel sad about it. I love men's derby, but I don't miss the drama, the ego, the constant holding-your-tongue that happens when you represent an organization. I got tired of defending people I didn't want to have to defend in order to make men's derby officiating look as if we were some cohesive, supportive unit. 

It's been three months since I left, and I'm still not sorry I did it.

The thing is, doing so freed me up to spend time thinking about what I actually like about derby, and what parts of it are satisfying to me, and what I get out of what parts of it. Because it's still expensive and crazy-making and so on, but those things are smaller-scale again. I can do the things that I like -- like put together a training tournament and help officials develop and feel valued -- without having to deal with the other things that make derby miserable. 

I get to reshuffle priorities and not apply to the tournaments that do not help me develop as an official, and instead I can work the ones that will. I can still have positive experiences without all the background noise and static.

...and that's been awesome.