When I was 14 years old I was obsessed with this movie called “Whip It”. The movie stars Elliot Page as a girl named Bliss Cavender growing up in the fictional small town of Bodeen, Texas. Bliss goes to Austin and falls in love with roller derby – the sport you get when you combine rugby and speed skating. Players shoot around an oval track in skates and copious amounts of protective gear, slamming into each other with hits and blocks to try and pass the other team and score points.
“Whip It” is about roller derby, but it’s also about a character who’s living between two worlds: the place that is home and the place that feels like home. The best scenes were the ones of Bliss trying to exist in both – knees knocking down the suburban streets of Bodeen in Barbie skates, trying to stand up, and then doing it.
I remember watching this movie and romanticizing both sides: the small town life of diners and dust in Bodeen, and the cool and camaraderie of roller derby. Once upon a time in Marfa, both of those things came together: roller derby was taking hold right here.
It all started when former Marfa resident (and current James Beard award-winning pastry chef) Cat Cox was working at a bar called Padres in 2011 (now The Sentinel), and someone brought in a pair of old skates.
“The dance floor there is a great little skating spot,” said Cox.
At that time, derby was in the air. A revival of this sport, which has been around since the 1930s, was happening in Austin and in other cities across the country. And Marfa had its own derby connections: David Beebe, Presidio County Commissioner and host of Marfa Public Radio’s “Night Train Express,” owned Padres at the time. He was also one of the former announcers for the Houston Roller Derby. Another local, Mark Declercq had been a trainer, also for the Houston Roller Derby. Once Cox started skating around the bar, the idea of starting a team in town came up.
“It kind of felt a little bit like a joke at first,” said Cox, “but then it was so much fun, when you strap on those skates and you’re just moving.”
After a couple of meetings, a core team of three was formed: Cat Cox as True-D Grit, Jenny Hatch as You Killed Kenny, and Cory Cason as C-Minus.
The team started skating on the slab at Vizcaino park, though they usually had to get there an hour early to clean up.
“ There seems to be a pastime in Marfa of throwing beer bottles onto that slab,” said Jenny Hatch. “So every time we went to practice, we would have to bring a broom and sweep off all the broken glass.”
Hatch hadn’t been super familiar with roller derby when she joined, but she’d loved skating as a kid and thought she’d give it a shot, “ I was just looking for something fun to do that's not drinking,” she told me.
Vizcaino was a pretty unforgiving track, filled with bumps and seams to get tripped up on.
“We eventually started calling it the cheese grater because when you took a pretty hard fall on it, you got some pretty gnarly road rash,” said Cox. But it was fun, classically small town: occasional guest “coaches” Beebe, Declercq, and Ty Mitchell would come to the slab and cheer them on.
The Marfa team eventually started attending trainings and scrimmages wherever they could, mostly in El Paso and Austin. “Our league was only four, and you need 14 for a roster, so we made it work by just doing what we could in practice.” said Hatch.
A big part of derby is the actual contact, learning how to hit and block. Luckily, the team had a volunteer: “We also had a guy, Caleb Jagger from Fort Davis, who would let us hit him,” said Hatch. His official derby name became “Brawl-coli,” because he was sort of spindly on his skates. There are a bunch of different roles to play on derby teams, but Hatch said due to the small size of the Marfa league, everyone wore every hat and knew how to do everything – block, jam, and hit.
“At one point we decided we really wanted to play,” said Hatch. “I was scared to death.” The whole team tried out for the Midland team – the Tall City Roller Betties, and they all got on. The Marfa team would travel to Midland for practice every week, and traveled all over Texas to skate with the Betties.
Eventually, the team decided they wanted to have their own bout in town – they called it “Mayhem in Marfa”. David Beebe stepped back into his derby announcer role, assisted by Mercer Black (his derby name was “The Colonel,” hers “Mercy Me”). To make a full team, Midland and Austin players joined the Marfa crew. This patchwork team was called the Dicey Dames, and faced off against the El Paso Crash Test Dollies (Cox and Hatch (then Grisham) sat down with Marfa Public Radio in anticipation of the match for Talk at Ten).
As Hatch and Cox recall it, the Marfa Activity Center (MAC) was shockingly packed – Hatch told me 400 people came out to watch the bout.
It was so popular, they had a second bout, with new team member Maiya Keck as Maya Ruins. “We called it Brawl Room Marfa,” said Cox, laughing.
Cox told me that the team, while it was active, made its mark in Marfa. They held a skate camp for kids in town, they sold merch, and they’d have skating themed movie nights at Padre’s (I was thrilled to hear that “Whip It” was on the list).
“It was a little miracle in the desert,” said Hatch.
The league lived on for a couple more years until Keck and Cox moved away. Cason joined the El Paso team, and Hatch largely retired from competitive skating, though she teaches on occasion – recently to a couple of girls in Marathon. “The first thing you need to learn in roller derby is how to fall, because everybody wants to fall backwards. You need to fall forwards,” said Hatch. Noted!
“I just think derby is such an amazing, interwoven community. You're basically family with whoever you meet, and when a bout is over, everybody's hugging, no matter what happened,” said Hatch. “It’s always been inclusive.” Hatch has friends everywhere from Belgium to Canada from her derby days.
I’ve been passing the MAC building on my walks around town, and it’s amazing to think of it as a roller rink – something totally different than how it is now. Not to be totally corny, but that’s sort of the magic of small town imagination and spirit: working with what you’ve got to make a cool idea happen.
I have a borrowed nostalgia for roller derby – my grandma used to go and watch it in the 70s in Long Island, cheering on her favorite team with her booming voice and long acrylic nails. “Whip It” touched on that nostalgia, and so did talking to Cox and Hatch for this story.
I must admit, I had some roller derby dreams of my own at one point, but when I went to a training, I kept sliding down the banked track. I was very good at falling, but terrible at staying up. I hung up my literal and proverbial skates and left the rink. But I recently found a pair at a yard sale here. They’re as close as one can get to Barbie skates – white with baby blue wheels and hot pink lining. Perhaps I’ll head out to Vizcaino one of these days and give them a whirl. Though I’ll be sure to bring a broom, and fall forwards.
