Love and blood: Greenville’s roller derby is a rough-and-tumble haven

GREENVILLE — Huddled in their designated corner before the bout, the players of the Greenville Roller Derby tug on skates and loop laces into tiny bows.

Joining the notes of laughter and chatter in the rink is the short crackle of padding being fastened, ripped off and fastened again as they adjust their mouth guards.

An aura of coarseness surrounds the skaters, with names like “Southpaw Smasher,” “Barium Betty” and “Abacus.”

A makeup effect of dried fake blood runs down “Sylce’s” face.

“Jackie O’Lantern’s” helmet is decorated with cobwebs.

“HeartLyss,” with a light blue roller skate inked on her arm, has had her name for more than a decade to remind her that she has survived two open-heart surgeries.

But the outer roughness of the team is a facade: This is very much a safe space — in large part for a niche segment of the LGBTQ community — even if an ankle turns and or a nose is bloodied.

Stickers adorn their helmets. “Be kind to yourself,” one proclaims. Another within the silhouette of Big Foot reads, “I believe.”

The roster has kept steady over the years because diversity is embraced and the sense of community is strong. They bond over similar ideals and commune with drinks and food after every Wednesday practice. Each pushes the other, literally and figuratively, to be not just better players, but better people.

Their tribe is one of 440 ranked teams across the world governed by The Women’s Flat Track Derby Association. It’s one of three other such teams in South Carolina — joined by the Columbia QuadSquad Rollergirls, Lowcountry Highrollers and Richland County Regulators Derby Team.

Before this game in The Pavilion in the Taylors community outside Greenville, “Kickin Little” draws a #20 on the arm of “SnatchBox” in thick black marker. Others wear numbered bands on their biceps instead of being directly marked, so as to not interfere with their menagerie of tattoos.

With time clicking closer to the game’s start, the Greenville team huddles in a circle with their hands stacked in the center.

“Who are we? GRD! Who are we? GRD!” echoes through the now patron-packed rink.

Physical and fast-paced

Each team takes to the track — jammers, blockers and pivots all situated in place.

Two minutes are added to the clock. The whistle blows. The game begins as skates squeak on the floor amid a cheering crowd.

Greenville’s first jammer of the night has crashed against the opposing team’s blockers, desperately searching for an escape.

It’s all part of a sport that for years has served as an avenue for both competition and expression and fellowship.

Roller derby is a physical, fast-paced, high-intensity sport played in two 30-minute halves, composed of several two-minute bouts.

Each team can have at most five skaters on the rink during each bout, or what in technical terms is called a “jam.” Each skater plays one of three positions: jammer, blocker or pivot. During a jam, each team has one designated jammer who scores points.

The other three or four players are blockers, known as “the pack.” They try to stop the other team’s jammer from passing through while aiding their own jammer pass the other team’s blockers.

After each jammer passes the opposing blockers for the first time, they then start scoring, earning one point for every opposing blocker they pass.

For all the rules and technicalities, the result is a spectacle of frenzied physicality.

During the last six minutes of the first 30-minute half, the crowd erupts into a cacophony of cheers as Greenville’s “Conway Hitty” manages to break through the other team’s blockers and laps the track again. In the two-minute jam, she scored 28 points.

“She’s a killer jammer,” said “Abacus,” who did not want to share her non-roller derby name because of her line of work.

Even with the scoring flourish, the first half ended with the opposing team, Twin Valleys from Roanoke, Va., up 107-83.

Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping” — more colloquially known as “I Get Knocked Down” — plays from the speakers during a second-half time out.

“I get knocked down, but I get up again. You are never gonna keep me down.”

Like-minded community

Greenville’s team has existed as a nonprofit since November 2008. Many members have sought out derby as a means of finding a community, joking that getting to hit others is an added bonus.

“Having my friends here, getting to knock the s— out of them,” Jacqueline “Jackie O’Lantern” Clawson said, pointing out, “I mean they volunteer to get hit.”

Abacus, the derby vice president, and Elizabeth “Barium Betty” Parisi, the derby president, also both enjoy the hitting aspect of the sport. Abacus didn’t realize it was a full-contact sport until she first arrived.

Back in 2009, Abacus wanted an activity where she could make more friends. While at Starbucks one day, she noticed a tearaway tab for The Greenville Derby Dames’ MySpace page.

She laughs now at the now-dated platform.

She designated herself as a rink-rat kid but didn’t have an opportunity to skate once out of high school.

“I showed up for practice, and I realized it was a full-contact sport,” she said. “I got to hit people and not get in trouble by anybody. And I did not stop showing up.”

Clawson also grew up skating at local rinks. After she graduated high school, she wanted to do something she cherished in her childhood. She joined the derby at its inception.

“I was young, dumb and 18, and I wanted to have some fun with like-minded people,” she said.

Once Clawson became a parent, she took a break from the derby for 10 years, then joined the team again in September 2022. She was grateful to be welcomed back with open arms.

Jackie “Full Metal Jackie” Watkins, who is newer to the Greenville team but not to roller derby, echoed the sentiment that the roller derby’s inclusive community has made her stick with it for the past decade.

“It’s just our little island of weirdos that flock together,” Watkins said. “A lot of like-minded people that are coming together to get on roller skates, have fun, be aggressive, be physical, get stronger. It’s just uplifting.”

An inclusive community

The league has made concerted efforts to ensure new recruits and the public know it is a welcoming space.

During the pandemic, the Greenville Roller Derby rebranded to more accurately represent its values. The team forfeited its previous name, Greenville Derby Dames, as a means to recognize the team is not only cis-gendered but also includes members that are transgender, intersex and non-gender-conforming.

Watkins appreciates how the sport needs a wide variety of body types to function.

“You could be 6’ 5’’, you could be 4-foot nothing – every person is valuable,” she said.

New, entry-level players go through a “Fresh Meat” program, a 12-week training course to teach skating and derby basics. After graduating, the skaters enter into a newly designed, two-month training group known as “Medium Rare Meat,” where instruction ramps up to include hitting drills.

For safety reasons, it takes about six months at minimum before someone can become game-eligible.

“We understand people have jobs and lives outside of derby, and we don’t want something here to impact that,” Abacus said.

The team recruits quarterly. It has an open-door, gender-inclusive policy where anyone is welcome to join. It is preferred that people know how to skate, but no one will not be turned away if they do not.

But Abacus emphasizes it’s not a “look cute club.”

“We are dedicated to our sport,” she said. “We are competitive.”

The final lap

With 15 minutes left on the clock, the aptly named “Slyce” cuts through the other blockers at least three times, blowing a kiss to the crowd cheering her on as she scores points.

Even though it ends in a blowout. The final score was 226-141, Twin Valleys.

It doesn’t stop the Greenville fans from jumping to their feet and hollering at the end of the game. The crowd rushes to the edge of the track and extends their arms out towards the center. The Greenville players take one last lap, high-fiving every last hand.