RollerCon 2014 Video Diaries: USARS Roller Derby

Let’s talk about USARS for a moment.

In its decision to start its own roller derby program and develop its own roller derby rule set, in spite of the great work done by the WFTDA and MRDA, USA Roller Sports has been met with much criticism from the greater roller derby community.

In the past, this criticism was justified. With horror stories of skater insurance claims gone awry all the way up to the overreaching issue of poor management that nearly killed off roller sports as a whole—only to start making a comeback thanks to the WFTDA—one would be forgiven in assuming that USARS is only continuing their ways today.

So it would seem still. This year, USARS canceled its three roller derby regional qualifier tournaments, opting instead to hold a single, open national championship for women’s and co-ed teams in northern California next month. Additionally, it was revealed in public USARS board meeting minutes that some kind of legal action may eventually take place against the currently-existing Team USA Roller Derby (both of them) for unauthorized use of the “Team USA” name, a name that will soon adorn USARS’ own national-select team.

No wonder some accuse USARS of “riding on the coattails” of the roller derby community!

However, much of the criticism directed at USARS seems to be ignoring one very important thing. Roller derby is supposed to be for the skaters, right? What, then, about USARS skaters? What do they think about USARS, and the style of roller derby it is going out of its way to attempt to develop and promote?

As it turns out, skaters who skate USARS absolutely love it. And despite the growing pains of USARS Roller Derby’s first three years, many were still enthusiastic about having a new roller derby option that’s hard, fast, competitive, and fun.

After the USARS showcase game at RollerCon, I spoke with USARS Roller Derby Coordinator AJ Epp about the Team USA controversy (USARS cannot and does not want to shut down the existing Team USA, but the U.S. Olympic Committee and its governing bodies has exclusive rights to the trademark), the cancellation of its regional tournament season (biggest complaint: Teams lamented a missed chance to get some “good, hard games” in before nationals), and the ultimate goal of USARS and its roller derby program.

I then spoke with skaters about what they like about USARS derby and their comments on the stigma surrounding the organization. Inevitably, comparisons between playing USARS rules and WFTDA rules were made by the skaters. Seeing that almost all of them are affiliated with WFTDA leagues and play both USARS and WFTDA regularly, they are the best suited to make those comparisons, as well as clear up some fallacies about the USARS game. (Fallacies often made by those that don’t skate it, it should be pointed out.)

Along the way, I talked with some curious RollerCon attendees to get their impressions after seeing USARS derby for the very first time, and whether or not they’d want to try it themselves. Judging by their responses, as well as from the small, but slowly growing number of USARS leagues and club teams across the country (and around the world), it seems as if once they have seen it and once they have tried it, they want to keep seeing it and keep playing it, because they like it.

If an organization, however flawed, wants to give skaters the option to play roller derby in the way they want to play it, no matter how few or how many skaters they are, maybe that’s something worth supporting after all.