December 2011 Featured League: Gotham Girls Roller Derby

Hailing from New York City, this league of hard working, committed skaters has been building a legacy since 2003. They face challenges (such as finding space) and reap the benefits (lots of interested skaters) of their location in a bustling metropolis. In addition to establishing themselves through a variety of outreach programs as a valuable member of the NY community, they produce their own bout coverage, which is broadcast on local television, and they are the first repeat winners of the annual WFTDA Championship tournament. Read on to learn more about the one and only Gotham Girls Roller Derby league…

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Location:
New York, NY. Since our birth in 2004, we've bouted in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx. For four years we practiced in Queens, and now we practice in Brooklyn. New York is a hard place to find venues! There are no skating rinks so we are a little nomadic when it comes to finding places to skate.

Please tell us about how you decided to use your iconic lady liberty logo and who designed it?
We had a contest – tattoo artist Regino Gonzales submitted the design. It really blew us away, so we snapped it up!
 Our 'Gotham Girl' on the logo doesn't have a name – maybe that could be a topic for a future contest…

How does your season run?
We have four home teams, so it requires six bouts for each team to play each other. We add a championship bout, a home bout for each of our travel teams, and two more double headers to allow each home team to play skaters from other leagues. That makes nine or ten home dates a season, which usually runs from early April to Halloween.

Are you close to any other WFTDA leagues?
There are a lot of leagues nearby, the closest being the Garden State Rollergirls, Suburbia Roller Derby, and the Long Island Roller Rebels. 



How many skaters/teams do you have?
We have 60 skaters spread between four home teams – the Brooklyn Bombshells, Manhattan Mayhem, Bronx Gridlock and Queens of Pain. We also field two compilation traveling teams (the All-Stars and the Wall Street Traitors, for which skaters try out.

How is your league structured (home teams, travel team, management)?
We were originally founded as a single-owner LLC, but in late 2007 reincorporated as a 501(c)3 non-profit. Three directors are responsible for the not-for-profit corporation. Below them there is an Advisory Board of about twenty-one, which includes team captains, committee chairs, and other critical admin roles. The NFP directors are responsible for taxes, filings, and making sure the league adheres to its stated mission. The Advisory Board makes day-to-day decisions on league policy.

How many days a week do you practice?
There are 5 practices available each week, broken down between league and each team.

In addition to GGRD's competitive league, we understand that you also house a recreational league. Can you please explain how the recreational league is organized? How successful has the recreational league been? What is the relationship between GGRD's competitive and recreational leagues? For example, do skaters move between the two?
The rec league has been a work in progress for quite some time. It’s been overwhelmingly popular; we have had to expand its programming every chance we get. It’s been a place for skaters to get their feet wet and get ready for tryouts. At the moment, it runs like a recreational soccer league with two different levels skaters pass through to get to the bouting level. This year, we had four different sessions throughout the season. Next year, we are probably adding a level after "level 3" where retired skaters can share the track with the most advanced meat-hopefuls.

Who is Gotham’s biggest rival? And have you had any outstanding, memorable moments against them when you bouted?
The team we've played the most (ten times) is the Philly Roller Girls; we always keep an eye on each other and are constantly pushing each other to improve. Obviously the most memorable moment in the rivalry is their one-point victory in the 2009 East Region finals, which was a fantastic bout and from which we came away with a lot of important lessons. We also just played the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls twice in six days – we won at the WFTDA Championships, and then the following weekend they won on a banked track at the Chicago Invitational. It's becoming a great cross-regional rivalry; hopefully finances and logistics work out so that we can play the top western teams more often.

Do you have any sister leagues you’d like to give a shout out to?
Our skaters have had so many great opportunities recently to train skaters and make derby friends all over the world – in France, Alaska, Australia, Puerto Rico, Los Angeles, Cleveland … it would be hard to pick just one for a shout out! And we'll always have a special bond with the nineteen other teams we met at Tucson's Dust Devil 1 in 2006, which is really when our interleague radar started to pick up.

What kind of training/bouting facilities do you have?
We rent our own 10,000 square foot "Crash Pad" for practice, and we bouted at four different "home" venues in 2011. We're still searching for that perfect spot with 3,000+ seats near a subway stop.

What are the individual challenges of your city?
Venues! When the league started in 2003 there were two indoor roller rinks in New York City, and they both closed in 2006. We spent that entire season practicing outdoors in parking lots, on tennis courts, on basketball courts, scrambling for parks permits, and fighting rain and early sunsets. Finally in 2007 we found our first rented practice warehouse, "The Crash Pad." It was in a sketchy neighborhood near some unsavory housing projects, and it leaked, and homeless people liked to poop on our front sidewalk, but it let us practice as much as we wished.
In late 2010 we moved in to our second "Crash Pad," in a better neighborhood, and closer to the subways. Having a home near the subways has been critical for us to be able to grow our rec league and to expand other skating programming.
 On the public bouting front, there simply are no "mid-sized" venues where we could bring in two or three thousand fans. We have to load our SkateCourt in and out of small college gymnasiums to skate for our fans, which takes a lot of planning and volunteer labor. Also, our venues are in public colleges with no on-campus alcohol permitted, which can make it difficult to attract fans in this hard-drinkin' town.
 And having to coordinate our schedule with the athletic departments of these colleges is its own challenge. We have to cobble together our season between three or four different venues, some of which are barely able to plan ahead more than a couple months at a time. And we try to do it without confusing our fans.

What are your biggest training challenges?
Each year the bar for entry via tryouts gets higher and higher. We've put a lot of energy of late into developing programming for skaters who want to be in the league but might not be quite ready.
It's a good problem to have – finding enough track time for everyone to keep aspiring skaters engaged! 
Living in an expensive city also makes off skates training at gyms or other facilities a budgetary challenge. Last year many of our home and travel teams took to the streets running on railroad tracks, hopping subway stairs, and doing pull-ups off the cross walk signs. We affectionately call this workout “hoborobics” and it’s become a favorite past time of our All-Star team.

Who are some of your favorite sponsors?
Yelp and Dr. Hauschka and Sailor Jerry have been our biggest national brand supporters, and there are a number of local restaurants and bars that have been friends of the league for quite some time, like Manitoba's, San Loco, and the Anchored Inn.
 Five Stride Skate Shop has been a critical partner for the league; not just because it's owned by two of our skaters, but it's the only brick-and-mortar shop in New York with any kind of quad roller skating expertise and inventory. Having a specialized resource like that here in Brooklyn has helped attract more volunteers, refs, and fans interested in the mechanics of what we do.

GGRD held its annual tryouts in November. Can you please explain how this process works? How has GGRD developed its tryout process, and what are the benefits for your league?
GGRD has been holding annual tryouts ever since we had an explosion of interest in 2006. That first year we had about 160 skaters try out and we ended up taking about 25. We’ve been refining the process since then. We have seen a decline in quantity of skaters trying out (this year there were about 70), but the quality of athlete coming in keeps growing. Back in 2005 and 2006 you could probably have come to one of our bouts and thought, "I can do that!" Nowadays we hear a lot of "there's no way I could do that!" 
The process of making it into Gotham is rather intense. We have one day of tryouts and then a day of callbacks. Those skaters that make that cut are invited to a 3-week "pre-meat" phase where they are evaluated on skating, attitude, potential, and everything that it takes to make a good league member, on and off the track. After that three- week period, we have another cut before the formal Fresh Meat Phase, which is three months of probation. At the end of that period they take their skills tests and go into the draft. Finally they are placed on teams and get to pick a derby name if they don’t have one already. We have a huge coming out party for them every spring called the "DerbyTaunt Ball."

With New York City being such a transient city, how many skaters try to transfer into GGRD each year? Can you talk a bit about what the process is like for a skater transferring into GGRD?
Indeed, we do get a fair number of transfers. At Championships you saw Gotham All-Stars who'd previously competed with Tucson Roller Derby, Nashville Rollergirls, Tampa Bay Derby Darlins, Arch Rival Roller Girls, and San Diego Derby Dolls. Skaters from other leagues are encouraged to be part of the regular tryout process, even if they arrive a few months before the fall tryouts. We allow these skaters to join as long term visiting skaters so that they can attend practice and get to know the league before they tryout. There’s also a process for skaters who arrive at 'funny times' as well, where they have to pass a skills test and go through a short probation period before being full league members. Even then, they may not necessarily actually be placed on a home team until the next full draft. We've got a couple of great skaters who transferred in this summer from the Cincinnati Rollergirls (Sk8 Crime and Hop Devil) who have been here for months and are itching to finally get on a team! It's hard for skaters like that to be "teamless" for so long, but we put a big emphasis on the season-long integrity of the home team rosters and maintaining a competitive balance.

We understand that GGRD is a 501c3 non-profit organization, and that the league has assisted in the development of community outreach programs. Can you talk a bit about the programs you’ve helped develop? What are GGRD's goals with respect to working with the large and diverse community of New York City?
With no indoor skating rinks around, we have to be a little creative to find ways to get community groups involved. And while we do perform a fair amount of active outreach to other charities, being a 501c3 charity means that the league itself is a charity! Our mission is the development of athletes for national and international competition, and we hold an annual charity auction where the major beneficiary is the league itself. This year we had skaters at the AIDS Walk New York, another group taught skating to day campers from the Hudson Guild, and we collaborated with Willie Mae Rock Camp For Girls to commission a derby anthem written and performed by Still Saffire, a group made up of four young teenage girls. "Community Outreach" is its own formal department within the league, co-headed by two skaters always on the lookout for opportunities to be good role models and to inspire confidence in young women.

Who are the best "behind the scenes" skaters who make your league run?
So many to mention! Each year the league president inducts a handful of skaters and volunteers into the "Order of the Brass Knuckles" – recognition of a year of service above and beyond. You can see this year's list at: http://www.gothamgirlsrollerderby.com/news/1247/2011-five-borough-furies-the-winners. It includes skaters, refs, stats volunteers, and even a local sports journalist (Thomas Gerbasi) who has taken an interest in the league and has generated scores of great skater profiles and bout previews for our website.

Who are some of your star on-track skaters and why?
We're blessed to have a handful of iconic skaters who were selected for Team USA: Bonnie Thunders, Suzy Hotrod, Fisti Cuffs, Sexy Slaydie, and Donna Matrix. We credit their diet of nails and glass. And while we're proud of them, we're equally proud of the stars of the Wall Street Traitors, who won the New York State tournament (the "Empire Skate Showdown") this year for the second year in a row. At our Five Borough Furies Awards Ceremony, Mayday Malone and Pippi Strongsocking were selected as Traitors’ MVPs.
 On both our All-Stars and Traitors it’s truly a team effort. The stars would not be stars without the entire team pushing them every day and every week in practice.

This year, GGRD's perennial underdogs, the Brooklyn Bombshells, won the Gotham Girls Roller Derby league championship – for the first time ever. How was the 2011 season different than previous GGRD seasons? What does the Bombshells' win mean for the future of GGRD?
The Bombshell win is very exciting for the league. The work they did this year was extraordinary – they really are going to force everyone to up their game next year. Extra practices, more land drill sessions…they are pushing the rest of us to be better. Next year everyone seems hungry to get their colors up on that championship banner and excited to put in the work that it will take to get them up there. Just as our All-Stars keep pushing the envelope, our home teams follow suit and really challenge each other to be better skaters every week.

Looks like you just held the Gotham Girls Roller Derby's annual end-of-season awards party, the "2011 Five Borough Furies" From what we understand, your awards party is a huge event, and you sell tickets to the public. Has GGRD's awards party always been organized this way? If not, how did this develop?
Our Five Borough Furies is indeed a big cocktail party held at a fancy venue that we all get gussied up for. It’s for us, but also for the fans who want to see who wins what awards. It makes the public feel like they are a part of the sport and the league when they get to hob nob with us.

Who were the big winners of the 2011 Five Borough Furies? How are the awards decided?
Our major awards are decided via a nominating round and then a final league vote. An additional few awards are announced based solely on stats such as “Cleanest Player,” “Best Point Differential as a Blocker,” and “Most Points Scored.” Then there's a handful of fun awards (like "Best Pre-Jam Dancer"), which are simply revealed to the league on divine stone tablets which mysteriously appear after a clap of thunder and a parting of clouds. 
This year's biggest winner was Bonnie Thunders who could tile her bathroom with the number of award plaques she got! She won, among others, Best Jammer and League MVP honors. She’s a fierce skater of course, but she’s also a great leader – on and off the track. 
Also, the big winners for the night were the Brooklyn Bombshells who received their well-deserved championship bearing necklaces. Being the first crew to win the champs for Blue – it was exciting to see. 



Please describe GGRD's relationship with NYC Life. How did GGRD negotiate the arrangement for coverage of games on NYC Life? And how can fans not from New York watch this great coverage?
Our relationship with NYC Media, the official TV, radio and online network of New York City has been enormously important for us. 2011 was the second year during which they aired edited broadcasts of our local home bouts on their station, which reaches eighteen million homes. We're on five nights a week at one thirty in the morning, so we get a lot of interesting questions from fans on the street: "Hey, are you those girls who skate around on TV when I get home from the bar?" The shows are also streamed worldwide on the city's servers at www.ggrd-nyclife.com, where anyone can go watch any of our 2010 or 2011 home bouts. We've made big investments in our video production capabilities in order to support these broadcasts. We do every stitch of the work ourselves, from integrating stats from Rinxter to setting up the cameras to editing the shows to delivering the final QuickTime files to the city government office.
 We were originally trying to attract attention from regional sports networks, but there were a lot of financial hurdles while we continue to grow. Sports networks rarely simply "decide to air something," especially not an emerging property like roller derby, and they'd never take on financial risk to produce the content themselves. This D.I.Y. opportunity popped up for us, and it's been a win-win arrangement – there's no money involved. They get free and interesting late-night content about New Yorkers, and we get free exposure and we get to present the sport exactly how we want it presented. 
One of the difficulties, however, is that NYC Life is a public station which can't air "calls to consumer action." So we can't integrate direct sponsor messaging, which limits the broadcasts' utility as a source of income. But it's helped us to focus the broadcasts on skater profiles and teaching the sport to New Yorkers, rather than presenting a barrage of advertising messages. It's also been a great place for us to test out ideas about how the sport should be presented, so that when the day comes for another 'jump up' in exposure for roller derby, we're ready with the expertise.

For GGRD, what are the benefits and challenges of being in the WFTDA's East Region?
One of the biggest benefits is proximity to nearby competitive leagues. We are only a car ride away from Philadelphia (Philly Roller Girls), Boston (Boston Derby Dames), and Baltimore (Charm City Roller Girls). Regardless of the outcome of any bout, these teams always challenge us to a tough fought battle and without their constant push we wouldn’t be where we are today. 

 


The Gotham Girls Roller Derby All Stars are the first repeat winners of the WFTDA Championships! Congratulations! What has GGRD done to make this accomplishment a reality? How was the 2011 experience of Championships different than the All-Stars' previous win in 2008?
Roller derby has grown so much since 2008 – both in its size and athleticism. Winning in 2011 was a much harder challenge than in 2008. We have stepped up our game so much since then; intensifying our on and off skates training to the nth degree. Specifically, our goals in 2011 were to step up our skating skills and fitness. With the influx of so many talented lifelong skaters in roller derby we had to get our skills up, and fast. The beginning of our season focused intensely on advanced skating skills. We looked to the disciplines of speed skating, hockey, and figure skating for guidance.

The Championship game against the Oly Rollers showed very solid and smart play by GGRD; consistently maintaining a solid lead over the 2009 WFTDA Champions. At one point, Oly closed the gap to 20 points but then GGRD shut them down for a final win of 140-97. What were things like on the GGRD bench during the Championship game? When did you know that The Hydra was going back again to NYC?
Our team always plays to the last second of the game so we don’t think anyone thought it was “ours” until the game buzzer rang. You could see that our skaters were lined up ready to go even after the buzzer rang. Our bench stayed cool, calm, and focused, knowing that nothing is won until it’s over. We never let our guard down because in derby the game can change so quickly.

What is the most exciting thing for GGRD about winning the WFTDA 2011 Championships?
I think the most exciting thing for our All-Stars was the sheer improvement in our skating skill and knowing all of the work we put in to improve this aspect of our game paid off. Gotham has always been known for its teamwork but each and every member of our team became a better skater this year, and when you combine that with strong teamwork it’s an unbeatable combination.

The weekend following GGRD's win at the WFTDA Championships, the All-Stars competed on the banked track in the Kitten Traxx Chicago Invitational. How did you get involved in this competition? Can you please talk about this experience including what it was like to transition from flat track to banked track strategy? What will GGRD do with the $1,000 earned for the third place finish?
We were invited by Bitchy Kitten, and though the timing was not the greatest, we knew we had to be part of this historic event. I think our biggest challenge was less about the strategy and more about playing on a slanted track. We had 7 skaters who had only skated on a banked track once before the game, and the rest of the team mostly had very little banked track experience. For Gotham, skating on the banked track is yet another way to build new skating skills and has been a great opportunity for some of our alternates to get game experience. 


Is there any other information that you would like to share with wftda.com?
For a blatant and shameless plug, we’ll have some new items of merch on sale so people can stock up for the holidays! Check out our website at http://www.gothamgirlsrollerderby.com/store soon to see the new goodies!

Do you have a special message to your fans?
Not only do they help keep the lights on and allow us to skate, they lift our hearts and keep us pumped! New York fans are unlike any other and we love ’em for it. Thank you to all those who have made a little room in their hearts for Gotham.

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