They’re ready to roll, elbow, and body slam their way onto the Fredericksburg sports scene. Still, not many have heard of the Fredericksburg Roller Derby team—a volunteer group of local women who lace up skates and create chaos on the track.
“It’s a full-contact sport,” said Scerica (pronounced Scare-ick-a), a bruising member of the team who thrives on the adrenaline. Her real name is Erica, but she explained, “I’m scary, so Scerica seemed more appropriate.”
Rules of the Rink
Despite the hard hits, there’s structure to the sport. Flat-track roller derby features a jammer line, a pivot line, a pack, and blockers. Players use their bodies to jockey for position and clear lanes.
The games are called bouts. New players are dubbed fresh meat. A signature move is the “Hip Whip,” when the jammer grabs a teammate’s hips to sling herself forward.
Players also wear “panties”—the official term for helmet covers. A pivot’s panty has a single stripe, while a jammer’s features stars, making it easy to spot key players in the pack.
Fredericksburg’s Team
The Fredericksburg Roller Derby team is part of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA), the international governing body based in Austin, Texas. The association oversees more than 400 leagues across six continents.
Founded in 2004 as the United Leagues Coalition, the WFTDA reimagined roller derby as a modern sport, emphasizing skater ownership and community involvement.
Locally, the Fredericksburg team sets up its track at the Field House at Dixon Park near the airport and inside the convention center near the stadium. “It takes a lot of space to put the track down,” said Scerica.
The league is all-volunteer. After games filled with sweat, speed, and bruises, there’s no paycheck waiting. “We get together and we have fun,” she said.
More Than Just a Sport
The team is active in the community, helping with fundraisers and local events. They’ve supported the “Mom Prom” benefit at the convention center, packed food boxes for a local food bank, and pitched in at the A. Smith Bowman Distillery’s summer festival earlier this month.
A Nod to the Past
Today’s flat-track roller derby differs from the spectacle of decades past. In the 1970s, professional leagues competed on banked tracks and carried city names like football teams. The San Francisco Bay Bombers, Philadelphia Warriors, and Baltimore-Washington Cats all featured co-ed rosters.
Roller derby even hit the silver screen. In 1972, Raquel Welch starred in Kansas City Bomber, a film that dramatized the sport’s rough-and-tumble reputation. Welch did many of her own stunts, breaking her wrist during filming. A young Jodie Foster played her daughter.
