Most people think that roller derby involves dressing up in tutus or rufflebutts and knocking people around on the track. Not only is that perception inaccurate, it's flat out wrong. Roller derby is a LOT of work and, to quote my favorite movie ever (The Princess Bride), "anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something."
On top of knocking each other around in front of throngs of adoring fans there is a lot of physical preparatory work involved. There's league practices full of plyometrics, agility drills, endurance marathons, and scrimmages. There are also separate team practices to work on more of the same along with team-specific strategy. Skaters also often cross-train during their non-derby time to help get them in tip top derby shape.
As much work as there is on-skates, I think there is even MORE work to be done off-skates. Roller derby is a DIY, skater-run sport. Most of the time there are no owners, no managers, no paid staff to make everything run like clockwork. The skaters, after long days at "real" jobs, work together marvelously to do their derby jobs.
I am heavily involved in the PR/Marketing committee of NHRD. I absolutely love it. I am a marketing manager in my "real" job and I really enjoy being able to apply some of the same principles to derby life. It's my nature to be a bit obsessive so I'm trying to learn everything I can about sports-specific marketing, including buying a couple of books on sports promotion and attracting fans.
The non-skating roller derby work will completely take over your life if you let it/want it to. I probably spend two to three times more hours working on committee things that I actually spend skating in a given week. I WANT to be this involved, though. Some people prefer to do a little bit in a lot of different committees. I like to go head first into just one.
Completely on accident I have also fallen into a fairly substantial role within the stats committee. It started out by just doing stats during a scrimmage. Then, DKB was out for a couple of weeks and I stepped in to coordinate finding people to do stats. Now, I always coordinate scrimmage stats, scan the sheets the next morning and send them out to captains, bench managers, and coaches. I am also coordinating the stats during our home opener (with the help of the lovely and talented Dirty Kat Box).
My first love will always be marketing and PR. Without being too selfish, in addition to just really liking promoting, improving the perception, and increasing awareness of our league, it also looks darn good on a resume. I often find myself wanting to work on derby stuff at my job and I need to resist. Real jobs pay, which is important for maintaining my derby habit!
I would encourage people to consider the amount of work when thinking about joining derby. I'm not trying to discourage anyone, just help them realize that derby is what we make it. Just as we all want to take our skating to the next level, it takes a lot of off-skates work by the wonderful women involved to take the league as a whole to the next level.
<3 NHRD!
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