One Thing (You're Soooo Lucky) You Missed From the Old Days: Personas

As roller derby becomes more and more professional, many of the nods to the old days are falling away.

Some skaters are even ditching their derby names in favor of their "given" names. (I'll talk more about that another time, it's an interesting topic.)

Anywhoo, if you came up in the last 4 years or so, chances are you were never encouraged to develop a bio of your "alter ego" derby persona. It was fun back then, but doesn't make much sense now.

Here's the front of my original trading card, when I was an LA Derby Doll:

And here's the back of it:

What's that you say? Can't quite read the text?

Uh, yah, that's intentional!

I'm waaaaaaay to embarrassed to tell you all that it says! I'll just give you some key words that should pretty much sum it up:

Hungarian, cannibalistic, roller gypsy.

 
 Good christ, my cheeks get red just thinking about it! But back then, it's just what you did.

You came up with a good name, and because nobody knew how to play the game yet, there were no stats for the back of that card. So... you came up with a screwy story to go with your name. 

I bet there's plenty of vets who look back on it fondly, and I know I was excited about it at the time.

I remember sending my brother Greg a couple of drafts to get his opinion.

He might've even wrote one for me... I think it was space themed???

Anyways, I'm happy to have been around from derby's early days but I am sooooo grateful the "alter ego" mania's died down a bit.

Especially since, from what I've seen, roller derby doesn't turn people into something they're not. It makes you more like you really are.

That's one vet's opinion, anyways.  : )

Have an exciting day today!

Here's my parting gift:

Super excited kid!