As Kingsway Skateland prepares to close shop to the public, a local roller derby team gears up with mouthguards, a helmet, knee and elbow pads and slips on their skates. They get on the rink ready to warm up, either by skating many laps around the rink or doing push-ups on skates.
Then, the real fun begins. One skater wears a star on their helmet to gain the most points by skating past the other team, but there is a human wall they have to get through first. The skater zips through the other team's line of defense after being pushed and shoved. The skater can now earn points for their team, but they have to do all of this within two minutes.
As someone who has never watched roller derby before, they might have their reservations about joining the team before they decide they wouldn’t mind being chest checked, but a local roller derby team hopes to gain new members to welcome into their community even though the sport can be seen as being aggressive.
The West Kentucky Rockin’ Rollers is an adult coed roller derby team based out of Paducah. The team has been around for over a decade, and some of the original members are still hitting the rink week after week.
One of those longtime members is Rockin’ Rollers co-president Lilli Noe, also known as Foxy Cleo Smack Ya. She said the sport can be intimidating, and oftentimes, the hardest part is showing up.
“If you don’t know anything about roller derby and you just come here for a practice, it’s very intimidating to see all these men and women on skates out there beating the crap out of each other,” Foxy said.
Foxy was immediately drawn to the sport after watching the 2009 film “Whip It,” which features the story of a teenager who joins her local roller derby team. It wasn’t until her cousin asked her to come out and hang out with the Rockin’ Rollers that she actually tried the sport.
Foxy has been hooked ever since, and even has her own personalized skates with her derby name embroidered on them. She said the sport has empowered her.
“When I first started, I was overweight and I wasn’t very confident. Whenever we would come out on the track I would just get demolished, and it would crush my soul,” Foxy said. “That made me want to be a better skater, get in better, and I trained and tried harder.”
The goal of roller derby is to score the most points within two minutes of the game, also called a bout. In each bout, there are four people from each team in the rink. One of those players is called a jammer, and their goal is to skate past through the other teams blockers. The team whose jammer is able to pass the blockers more is the winner.
In February, during its offseason, the Rockin’ Rollers offered boot camps in hopes of gaining new members and introducing people to the sport.
Brooke Wiley, or Wiley Coyote, is one of those new members. She used to play rugby at a university and is familiar with contact sports, so she decided to try out roller derby. She said the sport makes her feel powerful.
“It makes me feel in the community is just strong people, you know, doing something that’s out of the ordinary that not a lot of people know how to do,” Wiley said. “It just makes you feel really strong and independent.”
As more experienced members of the Rockin’ Rollers scrimmage in one of their bootcamps, Foxy helped newbies like Wiley practice basic skating maneuvers, like learning how to stop on skates and how to fall properly – a skill Foxy knows from experience is good for roller derby players to have in their toolboxes, as she has broken her tailbone three times.
Despite the bumps, bruises and healed injuries, Foxy still finds herself heading back to the rink. She said the team has also given her the confidence to explore her other passions.
“I like to sing in my part time. I never really had the courage to do it in front of people, but when I joined this team, they had me singing the [national] anthem for them before the games, and that kind of gave me a little self-confidence boost,” Foxy said.
Sally Garder Knaus, a.k.a Molotov Muffin, is one of the original members from the Rockin’ Rollers first season. She said she keeps coming back because of the family they have created.
“I love these people. This is my family, and I just come for them,” Muffin said.
The team has not competed in bouts since before the COVID-19 pandemic, and has lost some members since then. The Rockin’ Rollers were undefeated in bouts in 2019 and hope to continue that in summer 2026.
Muffin said it has been difficult to keep the team together in the years since.
“It’s a lot of hard work to keep the team together, especially after COVID and people meandered off doing other things, and it takes a lot to make sure you have the numbers to show up for practice,” Muffin said.
Although the sport can be trying, Foxy said that she keeps coming back because of the family it has brought her.
“We are like a big family, and I think we’re pretty funny,” Foxy said. “You know, we hang outside of the rink too. We just build a connection that people keep coming back to.”
The team practices at their home rink, Kingsway Skateland, in Paducah every Monday and Wednesday evening from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Foxy said the team also hopes to be creating a junior league in the near future to get younger skaters engaged in the sport.
