Career Q&A: Texas Lonestar Rollergirl, Honey Homicide

Forget what you thought you knew about Roller Derby. In this week’s Career Spotlight Q&A, Texas Roller Derby Lonestar Rollergirl, Honey Homicide gives you a guided tour into the world of the high octane mile-a-minute all-women’s sport, which is filled with camaraderie, injuries and miniskirts, just in time for Whip It, the Drew Barrymore directorial debut starring Ellen Page as an ex-beauty pageant misfit who finds herself through her transformation into a professional derby girl.

1. What lead to you becoming interested in Roller Derby? How long have you been playing?
I first saw derby in 2004, when TXRD was playing in the super-ghetto warehouse on the northeast side of Austin. My friends had been telling me to come for a long time, and when I finally did, I was enamored. I felt as though I'd found something I didn't know I'd been looking for. A friend of mine turned to me at halftime and said, "How much do you want to do this?" "So much I could crap my pants," I replied. I walked straight over to the recruitment tent and signed up for tryouts. I ended up making it onto the league, and I just celebrated my five-year anniversary in July.

2.  What position do you play, and what are the basic rules of the game?
I have played all three positions (blocker, jammer, pivot), but my specialties are blocker 3, which I played constantly for about three seasons and lately, pivot. Basic rundown: there are five girls from each team on the track at a time: three blockers, a jammer, and a pivot. The blockers and pivots all skate in a tight formation that's called a pack. The object of the game is for the jammers to get through the pack. After their first break through the pack, they get a point for each opposing player they pass.

3.  How did you choose your name? Were there any other names you considered before settling on Honey Homicide?
I think choosing a name was a lot easier back then simply because there just weren't that many leagues in existence and therefore fewer girls thinking up names. I had a really hard time because I just couldn't get it together and find a name that fit me. Then one day, I asked Cherry Chainsaw (who is one of my favorite skaters and people of all time) how she got her name. She said she picked Chainsaw because people call her husband Billy Chainsaw, and she picked Cherry because she had red hair. I thought about it for a few days, and then it suddenly hit me when I was driving home from work – Honey! I have hair that color, and it seemed to fit. I went home that night and looked through all the H's in the dictionary and finally settled on Homicide. The irony is that people tend to misspell homicide and make it homocide, which makes me look like I commit homosexual hate crimes (which I definitely don't – I'm an equal-opportunity killer).

4.  Roller Derby is an extremely high contact sport. Have you suffered or witnessed any injuries that stick out in your mind?
There are always stories of crazy injuries out there. I heard about this one girl in Chicago who got paralyzed, and I think it shocked the entire derby community. The most awful and high-profile injuries are broken bones. We had something like six spiral leg fractures one season; it was really bizarre. I've only had some sprained ankles, a separated shoulder, and a minor spinal injury. That's why we show off our bruises so often; it's a true testament to the kind of impact the human body, particularly our bodies, can handle.

5.  How do you balance your two lives and personas on and off the rink?
Derby becomes such an obsession that sometimes you begin to lose yourself in your derby persona, and it bleeds over into your non-derby life, which is a great thing in most cases. You love this new confidence, but be careful with your alter ego because it sometimes gives you license to do things your non-derby personality wouldn't approve of.

In my fourth season, I really started to feel like derby had taken over my entire being. I sort of had this fit in my closet one day. I pulled down all of my derby shirts, clothes and old uniforms off of their hangers, and I looked at what I was left with, [which was] not much. My advice to any derby girl is to enjoy yourself and your sport but not to forget that your alter ego isn't the one that matters in real life – it's the person you were before derby and the person you will be after it's all said and done.

6.  What has been the best part of being a Lonestar Rollergirl for you?
The best part of being a Lonestar Rollergirl is that you get to be surrounded by women who you actually like. Femininity is very much a part of our community's identity, and the best part is that when we run our business, we don't run it like men. We run it like women, and I think we do a damn fine job.

7.   What were some challenges or roadblocks that you had to overcome to get to where you are today?
As a league, the last few years have been very difficult for us. The last few years have been a financial struggle because we have to pay for a space in which to play our games plus a space to practice, and we no longer get our bar sales. Plus, owning a banked-track is like owning an elephant – it's fun as hell, but there's a lot of work involved when you want to move it. Whenever we play a game, I'm thankful that we have two tracks because we only have to set it up and break it down once, and our new track has a lot fewer pieces than our old one.

8.  How did you get your skate in the door?
I just tried out and made it. Back then TXRD was just trying to fill up the league, so if you could skate safely, you were pretty much in. I had some skating experience, but our standards have gone way up. I wonder sometimes whether I would make it had I tried out later.

10.  Did college prepare you for your career?
Ha! What career? I graduated in December with an extremely useful degree, and I'm delivering pizza. Recessions are awesome (don't miss the sarcasm there). So, I'd say that the driving course I took when I was sixteen prepared me more than anything else for my current vocation.

11.  Final words of wisdom?
Don't skate injured. A lot of girls think that they're being tough by skating through an injury, but it's really stupid because you could have a life-long medical issue. I knew a girl once who not only injured herself but didn't go to the doctor for several months, and now she can't play derby because the right hit in the right place might paralyze her. My advice to my fellow skaters is that no derby for a little while is better than no derby forever.

- By Chaka Cumberbatch

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