Two years ago, Jenny Mohammed, a 34-year-old full-time mother from the Bronx, was flipping through television channels while nursing her 6-month-old son, Kai, and landed on a reality show about roller derby. She was so enthralled by the hard-charging women dressed like pinups that she Googled pictures of roller derby girls and put up a shot of one in electric-blue eye shadow on her refrigerator.
Mohammed spent the next year skating around a nearby paved reservoir while pushing Kai in a baby jogger, all to try out for the Long Island Roller Rebels league.
She is now a member of the Ladies of Laceration, one of four teams in the league. "There are moments when it's very clear that I am in a very different place than a lot of the girls," she said of her single teammates. "I've seen girls get hit extremely hard where their neck snaps, and I think, 'What am I doing here?'"
PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
In her basic track pants and tasteful diamond stud earrings, Mohammed does not look as if she would elbow an opponent. Then again, roller derby girls are no longer just single women in fishnets who flash their underwear at fans. Today a growing number of mothers play, too, whether they're stay-at-homes who shun conventional mommy-and-me groups or executives looking for a diversion outside of home and office.
"Part of the reason I think moms are attracted to roller derby is that they get to develop a new persona," said Melissa Joulwan, the author of Rollergirl: Totally True Tales From the Track (Touchstone, 2007). "When you're a mom, you have to put your child first, and I imagine it's liberating for a mother to go back to who she was before she had a child, to just be a woman, instead of a mother."
There's no official record of the number of roller derby players nationwide, let alone how many of them are parents. But team managers, players and a spokeswoman for the Women's Flat Track Derby Association agree: they are seeing a modest rise in mothers joining leagues. Last year, a mothers-only league of 17 women was formed in Austin, Texas, after Cathy Parkes, its founder, recruited talent from the parent pool at her daughter's preschool.
Mothers drawn to the rough-and-tumble game said it helps them release the stress of raising children and prove that being responsible for a child doesn't mean you can no longer throw body blocks. It doesn't hurt that wearing roller skates also makes them feel sexy, they said.
"I'm a mom, and I teach high school," said Margaret Fackler, 27, a member of the Texas Rollergirls in Austin, who goes by the rink name Olivia Shootin' John. "But when I'm out there, I'm a rock star."
For Maggie Benavides, 37, a mother of three boys in Milwaukee, getting in on the action raised her self-esteem. "I got my youth and spirit back," said Benavides, a social worker who plays for the Brewcity Bruisers. "I don't feel old, even though the other girls will tell me, 'I got my first grownup job,' and I'm like: 'Your first grownup job? My skates are older than you.'"
Modern-day roller derby — which was revived five years ago by a group of women in Austin, who used a flat track, instead of a banked one — is an hourlong game made up of two-minute sprints. Each team has four blockers and a sprinter (or jammer), whose goal is to skate through the pack without getting knocked down by the other team.
Not many people know the rules of roller derby. What's far better known is the spectacle of the sport. With its skimpy uniforms, provocative derby names (like Holley KnockHers) and crowd-pleasing catfights, the bacchanalian side of a roller derby bout has entertained generations of fans.
There are two types of mothers who play: those who don't mind having their children tag along, even if it means they might see mommy punching someone, and those who use practice time as a reprieve from child rearing.
Fackler said she and the other mothers on her team don't talk about their broods. "We've spent all day with our kids, and now we're our roller derby names, and we're going to be talking derby, not about our kids," she said. Still, Fackler said that when she sees her 9-year-old daughter's calendar, marked with the nights she wasn't home to read her a bedtime story, she worries that the game is taking her away too much.
Denise Carrel, 24, plays for the Arizona Roller Derby league in Phoenix and has a 3-year-old daughter who holds a sign during bouts that says, "My Mommy Will Kick Your Mommy's Butt." "It's very easy as a mom to get wrapped up in that's all you are," Carrel said. "Roller derby is a good time to have my own thoughts and feelings about something."
Practice is a family affair for the Dominion Derby Girls in Norfolk, Virginia. While the mothers skate, their children, mostly girls, imitate them on the sidelines and ask when they will be old enough to play.
She also credits the sport with helping her keep her 2-year-old, Lili, in her arms when she tripped over a curb in a mall parking lot. "I instinctively did a double knee fall," she said, "and landed holding her upright." After her teammates heard about her fall, they tried to recruit more mothers with signs that said, "Roller Derby Saves Lives," under a sketch of her clutching Lili. (They also made a sign that said: "The NFL has nothing on our tight ends. Lose your baby fat. Join roller derby.")
Roller derby is one of the few full-contact sports for women. (Rugby is another.) It's a hard-charging competition, in which broken bones and concussions are common. Still, mothers who play would rather get their workouts while wearing protective pads than jogging on a treadmill.
Fackler of the Texas Rollergirls has seen two of her teammates break their legs this year, but is undaunted. "I don't have a broken leg yet, but I know that the girls who do can't wait to get back skating again," she said.
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