Roller Girl, the graphic novel by Victoria Jamieson, was many girls’ first introduction to the world of roller derby. The story follows a girl named Astrid who discovers her love for roller-derby as it leads her to understand her true identity. Westridge has their own version of Roller Girl, and she is Shannon Keller, Upper School Art Teacher. While only in her second year teaching at Westridge, Ms. Keller has been playing roller derby for over 10 years.

For those who don’t know, roller-derby is a roller skating contact sport played on an oval track by two teams of five skaters. Ms. Keller began her roller-derby journey around 12 years ago with the Derby Dolls, Los Angeles‘ original women’s quad-skate banked track roller derby league. However she has left her skating days behind to coach the Junior Derby Dolls and the program Derby Por Vida that coaches the future derby skaters. She says, “Of course, like a lot of people that start derby, I got really into it.” 

As a coach, Ms. Keller works with the junior female identifying group ranging from 7 to 17 year olds, and coaches them to play the full contact sport with wheels on a banked track. “You can come with very little skill, and we can teach you how to roller skate and then how to eventually incorporate full contact, which is very unique for a women’s sport.” As a coach who champions the sport, Ms. Keller notes that the attitude towards athletes supports empowerment. According to Ms. Keller, the idea that “there’s no such thing as ‘the right body type’” is very prevalent in the roller derby world. There are no good bodies or bad bodies, just normal human bodies. 

Ms. Keller was introduced to roller derby at a young age, so she has watched the sport grow over the years. In the 80’s, derby had aspects of wrestling and players would occasionally throw elbows at each other, which presented it more as entertainment than a real sport. Now, Ms. Keller explains, “We don’t do that. We’re really a legitimate sport.” 

Seeing the Texas Rollergirls on TV for the first time, Ms. Keller was inspired by their toughness and decided to join. Just like any other sport, she realized her love for derby and remained dedicated to improve and grow in derby. 

Besides the incredible workout, derby also provides players with some valuable knowledge on cooperating with teammates. “You have to learn how to get along with people that maybe you don’t normally get along with,” she said. “Also it’s a really great escape.” The constant switching from offense to defense and the chaos of your teammates around you make it extremely difficult to focus on anything else. “You can’t think about the dishes, or your laundry, or things that you have to do.” 

A special characteristic of roller derby is that every player has a designated derby name that is used in place of their real names. Ms. Keller’s is Brooklyn Deck-her, as the names are meant to be both menacing and witty. The rules within the roller derby community are that you can only change your name once in order to ease the confusion, so when children play when they’re younger, oftentimes they change their names to something more mature and fitting for their older selves.

As fun as it sounds, roller derby is certainly not a walk in the park. Ms. Keller shares, “I’ve torn my MCL in my right knee and my ACL in my left knee. And I’ve had 11 stitches in my face. I’ve had two concussions. So yeah, it’s pretty dangerous.” Despite having tons of pads, a mouthguard, and a helmet, roll derby can be a little risky. But to Ms. Keller, it’s worth the risk. Her daughters have also been playing roller derby since they were little and had their fair share of injuries. The two of them play different positions: her oldest blocks and protects her sister who can then speed past defenders. She laughs, referring to herself and her daughters, “We’re really proud of our war wounds. Almost everything heals.”

Roller derby is truly open to anyone, as long as you have a mouthguard and insurance. For anyone interested in playing, the Derby Dolls are located in Vernon, California. For more information on the Junior Derby Dolls, you can visit this website or reach out to Ms. Keller directly at [email protected].

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