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Alli Catraz reacts to a bad call by an official as she sits on the bench with Foxy Force. Click to enlarge

COLUMBUS — When a friend of a friend on MySpace asked Alyssa Shaw to join a newly-formed roller derby league, it didn't take her very long to answer.

"Hell yeah," Shaw said. "Who wouldn't want to do roller derby?"

And Foxy Force, Shaw's roller derby alter-ego, was born.

Shaw and friend Amy Spears, both Southeastern graduates, are members of the Take-Outs of the Ohio Roller Girls roller derby league.

"It's a full-contact sport," said Spears, who works at Ohio State University in the English department. "People expect it to be more like the WWF, with pre-determined outcomes. It's not like that at all."

The Take-Outs are the two-time defending Envy Cup champions, and are currently undefeated. They'll face the Blackeye Bullies in the 2008 Envy Cup final on Sunday, July 6 at 5 p.m. at the Ohio Expo Center's Lausche Building in Columbus.

Roller Derby revival

The league began through Myspace.

Melissa Wallace, a former Ohio University rugby player and medical technologist at Ohio State University Medical Center, was talking to a friend through the social networking site and discovered the sport's rebirth. It was being played on flat tracks, rather than the banked tracks seen on television — and the matches were real, not staged by producers.

After posting fliers around campus at Ohio State, Wallace and about 15 other possible skaters — including Shaw — sat in on the first Ohio Roller Girls meeting at a pizza shop in Columbus.

The league had its first official season bout in April 2006 — and Wallace and Shaw are the only ones left from the initial meeting.

"It was a really good feeling to actually pull off having our first game," said Wallace, the league's president and founder. "It was a huge accomplishment."

Shaw and Spears, who heard about the league from Shaw's sister, both competed. Shaw played soccer and basketball at Southeastern, while Spears had never participated in any type of athletics.

"I thought it was the greatest thing ever," Spears said. "Looking back on the tapes, we realize what babies we were. We've come a long way since then."

This season, the league has grown to nearly 70 members competing on four teams — and they pay to play.

Members pay $30 monthly dues and are required to help with fund-raising and volunteer for public events.

The skaters come from all different walks of life — accountants, nurses, stay-at-home mothers, teachers and massage therapists — but most of their teammates couldn't tell you what they do for a living.

"You see each other day in and day out," Spears said, "and all we talk about is roller derby."

Name game

Each skater has a registered name through the Women's Flat Track Derby Association, the sport's governing body — and there is no duplication allowed.

For Shaw, picking a name was simple. Foxy Force, the name of the failed television series starring Mia Wallace (played by Uma Thurman) in the Quentin Tarantino film, quickly came to mind.

"I love Uma Thurman and Quentin Tarantino," Shaw said. "I also like to play off (Thurman's) character in Kill Bill since the Take-Outs are ninjas."

Spears knew she wanted a prison-themed name, made a list and picked Alli Catraz. Of course, another skater in Fort Wayne had just registered the name Val Catraz, but she gave Spears permission to use her name.

"If we ever skate against each other," Spears said, "they can make up a story about how we're related."

There were only about 2,000 names when Spears and Shaw started skating. Now, there are about 13,000, making it a lot tougher.

"The girls now have to be a little bit more creative," Shaw said.

Bumps and bruises

Spears and Shaw practice about three to five days a week.

Both love the contact that comes with roller derby, and don't mind the bruises — or getting planted by a player twice their size.

"I've got a permanent bruise on my left hip," Shaw said.

"You always have small bruises," Spears said. "I got kicked in the shin a few weeks ago, so I've got a nice wheelprint, but it's starting to fade.

"It's anything you'd expect from hockey or rugby," Spears said.

That's why they practice so much.

"It's physically grueling, but the more you train, the less bad part of grueling it becomes," Spears said.

It shows in their game, too. Shaw and Spears are both members of the Ohio Roller Girls traveling all-star team.

On June 22, the 28th-ranked Ohio Roller Girls team traveled to Feasterville, Pa., for the East Coast Derby Extravaganza, an invitational which saw some of the best teams in the nation, including New York's Gotham Girls and the Texas Rollergirls.

Ohio went 1-1, beating Cleveland's Burning River Roller Girls in their first match 86-85 on the final jam. They fell to the Grand Rapids, Mich., Grand Raggidy Roller Girls in the second bout 115-39.

Ohio is now the 34th-ranked team in the nation, and is hoping to keep getting stronger.

"I would hope we could become more competitive on the national level," Wallace said.

Bigger and bigger

Wallace's "crazy random idea" is now three years in the making. Just like the Ohio Roller Girls has grown, so has flat track roller derby as sport.

"It's crazy to think about," Wallace said. "There is a league in pretty much every city. I think it's only going to get bigger from here."

Anthony Dill, an Ohio Roller Girls official, is amazed at how quickly the sport is growing. With all the publicity it's receiving, Dill and everyone else involved feels the sport is only going to get bigger.

"It really makes people think: 'I wonder if I have a team in my town?,' " Dill said.

Wallace said roller derby's underground popularity is quickly becoming mainstream, just like mixed martial arts. Once people start to understand and accept it as a sport, Wallace said, it will it become big.

"(People) think of roller derby from the 1970s where it was staged," Wallace said. "People realize that it's an actual sport and get drawn in that way."

Spears sees the sport growing in a massive way.

"I really think it might be the thing that's the first women's sport on the map as a popular thing," Spears said.

Ohio Roller Girls announcer Tank, who wears a wrestling style luchador mask during games, said the individuality of players — including the likes of Foxy Force and Alli Catraz, who he says have been two of the best players in the league for "a long time" — is what makes roller derby so endearing.

"Roller derby has that personality," Tank said. "The names, the hair, the attitude, the tattoos — all of that kind of stuff that's so much fun. On top of that, you have these great athletes who are working 9-to-5 jobs and they lay it all on the line for the passion and beauty of the sport.

"The speed that this game is being played with, along with the good old fashioned American violence. How can you not love it?"

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0365 or mcooper@coxohio.com.

Envy Cup Finals

Who: The Take-Outs vs. Blackeye Bullies

When: Sunday, July 6, 5 p.m.

Where: Ohio Expo Center Lausche Building

Admission: $15, children 10 and under are free.

Wanna play?

The Ohio Roller Girls are having tryouts on July 22 and 23. For more information, e-mail recruiting@ohiorollergirls.com.

Roller Derby: How it' s played

There are two teams of five skaters each. Each team has one scoring position called a jammer — and the jammer starts at the back. The rest of the skaters are called blockers, and they form what they call a pack. The blockers get a head start on the jammers, going at the first whistle, then the jammers start sprinting at the second whistle. The jammers have to get through the pack and back around another lap before they can start scoring. On their second and future trips through, they get a point for every opponent they pass. Everyone else tries to stop the other teams' jammer from passing. The team with the most points after two 20-minute periods wins. Source: OhioRollerGirls.com.