Christina O'Connor | The Roanoke Times

NRV Rollergirls practice at Adventure World in Christiansburg.

Are you a rollergirl wannabe?

The NRV Rollergirls meet twice a week to practice at Adventure World Family Fun Center in Christiansburg. You must be 18 to participate. For more information, call Shilo Atkinson at 641-1486 or e-mail her.

CHRISTIANSBURG -- Tough cookies don't crumble.

Just ask Shilo "Scandalous Sweetie" Atkinson, Andrea "The Toxic Cookie Cut Her" McCloud or Mary "Hurricane Gussie Category 5" Ballengee.

Beverly Franklin, Jenny Przybyla, Missy Fields, Melanie Quesenberry and Gail Taylor won't crumble either, though they've yet to come up with their derby names.

They will.

An alias, according to Shilo Atkinson, is very important.

"That's your personal identity for derby, your alter ego," explained the 28-year-old, whose day job as a home health care nurse brings out her gentler side.

"Derby," she added, "is a way for good, clean girls to cut loose and get a little ornery."

Or, as Mary Ballengee puts it quite succinctly, "I just want to kick a--!"

At Adventure World Family Fun Center, this group of women -- ranging in age from 24 to 40 -- prepares for the day when they'll get their chance to raise a ruckus.

Roller derby has come to the New River Valley.

In February, Atkinson started posting signs around Adventure World, urging women to join her in fulfilling a lifelong dream.

Roller derby, she said, "is something I've always wanted to do. I love skating. I watched it on TV when I was a little girl."

Atkinson also began recruiting some of the weekend hobby skaters she saw at Adventure World and soon had a small team.

Andrea McCloud wears her moniker on her helmet.

Missy Fields heads the line at practice.

Mary Ballengee cheers on her teammates practicing a relay race.

Missy Fields stretches and warms up before with the rest of the NRV Rollergirls before practice.

Pink and black are the NRV Rollergirls' team colors.

NRV Rollergirls got off to a wobbly start.

"I had never skated before, maybe twice in my whole life," groaned Missy Fields, a 25-year-old stay-at-home mom.

"Oh, honey," added Ballengee. "I had to crawl home one night and my boyfriend had to put me in the hot tub."

Now 32 and employed in construction, Ballengee is used to strenuous labor.

But when she started with the NRV Rollergirls, she discovered muscles she didn't know she had.

The women learned soon enough that roller derby is a grueling sport, one that requires strength, speed, a good sense of balance and a lot of concentration.

"Roller derby is like driving a car," said Gail Taylor, the senior member of the team at 40. "You have to be aware of everything around you. If you don't watch everybody around you, you're going to get caught up in a big wreck."

That's something Taylor's teammates are just beginning to learn.

"At first, all I could think of was getting around the track," Ballengee said. "Now, I just think about catching Shilo."

Atkinson -- who started NRV Rollergirls after a short stint with Roanoke's Star City Rollergirls, a group that's also still in its infancy -- has more skating experience than most of her teammates. To her, experience doesn't matter.

"Some girls think their skill levels aren't good enough, but we're willing to take all levels, work with them and teach them," she said. "We are accepting new members for the league. I want 28 women. I'd like to have four good teams with rotators to fill in. Eventually, we want to be considered a professional league."

Before that can happen, the group will have to compete -- or "bout," in roller derby terms -- for a year. Acceptance into the Women's Flat Track Derby Association, the national organization that sets the standards for competition, requires that a league pay annual dues and meet a variety of criteria for inclusion.

Current members of the NRV Rollergirls know they've got a long way to go.

"The hardest thing for me is building up the speed," said Andrea McCloud, a 26-year-old day care teacher who just started skating in October. "When I do my cross-overs, I fall."

For Taylor, who's making a comeback from a 2005 cancer diagnosis, the real work involves keeping her passion in check.

"If I didn't control my temper, I'd be fighting with my teammates," she said. "It takes a lot not to get attitude toward your teammates. I have a kind heart. I don't like to knock them down."

But Adam Shephard, 28, said flat-track derby competition doesn't hold a candle to the fast-and-furious banked track derby of olden days.

"There's limited contact in this version," he noted. "Fights are a big no-no. You can still knock people down, but it's not as physical."

Recently, Atkinson talked Shephard into coaching the NRV Rollergirls. Although he has coached several high school sports, including football, Shephard said coaching roller derby is new to him.

Already, he has been able to pass on one important tip to his skaters:

"You can't be afraid to fall."

In fact, Shephard leads his pink-wheeled speedsters in wipe-out drills, teaching them how to fall without injuring themselves.

The roller derby skaters wear quad skates, which provide more stability than in-line skates. They also wear helmets, knee and elbow pads, wrist guards and mouthpieces.

Although the NRV Rollergirls don't have matching uniforms yet, they do sport the rollergirl look in practices. Short skirts, colorful tights (which provide less friction when sliding across a skating rink on the backside), tank tops and patterned knee socks make up the ensemble.

Pros often top off their fashion statement with eccentrically dyed hair and wild makeup.

"The look is a big part of it," explained Atkinson. "It's like a split personality. Your uniform says a lot about your derby persona."

It's that double persona, many say, that's the real attraction of roller derby.

"I sit in my house with my kids all the time," said 29-year-old Beverly Franklin. "You know how much stress moms have. You can take it out in derbies."

Ballengee said the sport's aggressiveness is a draw for her, too.

"We can't whip up our husbands or our boyfriends," she said, grinning. "I think it's more of a girls' sport. Men are too hot-headed. They're more dramatic than women and they don't realize it."

Shephard doesn't mind the male bashing. If it inspires his skaters, why argue?

He thinks he might have the makings of a team.

"They're quick learners and they're dedicated," he noted. "There are a lot of girls here who never skated. It's amazing to see how far they've come in just a few weeks."

And though he's not getting paid for coaching the NRV Rollergirls, Shephard said there's something in it for him, too.

"I get to see pretty women skate."

Basic roller derby rules

Roller derbies, held on a circuit track, pit two five-player teams in competition. The rules are complex, but the objective is to get a “jam,” or scoring play. A jam is successful when the lead jammer pulls away from the pack and laps the field within two minutes.

Each team has blockers (defensive players), a pivot (the last line of defense) and a jammer.

The clock and the jam start when a jammer passes the leading opposing blockers in the pack. There’s no limit to the number of jams allowed, but if a referee calls off a jam with four short whistle blasts, then the jam is over.

Only skaters wearing the designated jammer’s star helmet are eligible to accrue points.

Jammers don’t score on their first pass through the pack. After clearing the pack the first time, they score points by passing opponents on each subsequent scoring pass. Blockers, of course, try to keep them from doing this.

Roller derby has two classes of penalties: major and minor.

Minor penalties include holding, blocking, stalling, tripping, illegal use of the hands and other such fouls. When a skater chalks up four minor penalties, she’s sent to the penalty box.

Fighting, intentional roughness, deliberate or excessive insubordination, gross unsportsmanlike conduct and illegal procedures that result in a jam being called off are major penalties. A skater called on a major penalty must leave the track immediately and go to the penalty box for one minute while her team plays without her. Referees may also expel players at their discretion.

Roller derby dates

1932: Publicist Leo Seltzer hatches the roller derby idea after holding dance marathons for unemployed people hoping to win cash prizes. Seltzer decides to combine the popularity of roller skating and dance-a-thons.

1935: First Transcontinental Roller Derby is held in Chicago. The 39-day event features 25 two-person teams skating around a track to simulate the distance between Los Angeles and New York City: 3,000 miles. Clarice Martin and Bernie McKay, one of only nine teams to finish, win the derby after skating 493 hours and 12 minutes.

1937: Seltzer creates the International Roller Derby League and the Roller Games League is started as a competing outfit. A spectator sport evolves.

1940s and 1950s: Intense rivalries develop between competing teams and roller derby gains a rough-and-tumble reputation.

1973: Seltzer’s International Roller Derby League holds its last game. Blaming high gas prices for low attendance, the first incarnation of roller derby dies.

1970s to 1990s: Other skating leagues — the International Roller Skating League, American Skating Association, World Roller Federation — keep the sport going, especially on TV, where derby competition becomes more theatrical. “Rollergames,” a show created in 1989, mimics pro wrestling on skates with a banked figure-eight track and obstacles such as a ski jump and an alligator pit.

1997 to 2000: TV’s “RollerJam” revives interest in the sport with in-line skating games televised from Universal Studios in Orlando, Fla. Initial teams consist of seven men and seven women.

2001: First all-female derby team of the new millennium forms in Austin, Texas. A revived interest in the sport, particularly among women, helps start new leagues in urban areas around the country.

2004: Women’s Flat Track Derby Association is formed. The association now has 38 professional member leagues.

2006: TV reality show “Rollergirls,” featuring the Lonestar Rollergirls from Austin, has a one-season run.

2007: Proving that what goes around comes around, roller derby comes to the New River Valley with the formation of the NRV Derby Girls.

Derby divas

Since the beginning of roller derby, women have been attracted to the sport. In its first 50 years, roller derby had both male and female teams competing in leagues. Today, women are giving the sport its grassroots revival.

Remember these derby divas?

Josephine “Ma” Bogash, the game’s first marquee skater, started with the Transcontinental Roller Derby in 1935. She and her son, Billy Bogash, were stars of their time.

Midge “Toughie” Brasuhn captained the Brooklyn Red Devils from 1949 to 1953. Her biggest rival was Gerry Murray, an Iowa girl who dropped out of high school and joined the derby in 1938 at age 17.

Ann “Banana Nose” Calvello was the only professional athlete to compete in seven decades. Known for her wild dyed hair and makeup, she earned her nickname by breaking her nose 12 times.

Joanie Weston, aka “Blonde Bomber,” “Blonde Amazon,” “Roller Derby Queen” and “Queen of the Penalty Box” joined the San Francisco Bay Bombers in 1954 and became the most beloved star of the sport. She was the highest-paid female athlete in the 1960s and 1970s.