The C-U Rollers take Champaign by storm

By: Patrick Wood

Posted: 3/10/10

"My name is Shelia Hurt and that is my legitimate name, not my derby name-everybody asks me that."

Meet Sheila. If you passed by her on the street, you probably wouldn't think that she was too out of the ordinary. But that couldn't be more untrue. Sheila Hurt is one of the founding mothers of the C-U Rollers, a rapidly growing Champaign-Urbana roller derby team.

The idea of forming a roller derby team actually began with Sheila's husband, Lee.

"(Lee) was listening to the Jim Croce song "Roller Derby Queen" in the car and he came home and just kind of had the idea that I'd make a great roller derby girl," said Hurt, "I said that he was crazy, that there was no way."

But after mulling the idea over in her head, Hurt began to realized that maybe her husband was on to something.

"Growing up and seeing it, I thought that (roller derby) would be kind of cool because I didn't have a lot of friends in the area, as I'm from Chicago," said Hurt, "I thought this would be a great way to make friends, get women to come out and be active, build friendships, and help the community in the process."

With the help of an ad placed on Craigslist.com, Hurt recruited five interested women from the area and soon, many began to follow.

"After a few months, (the team) started to bloom and now we have about 30 girls," said Hurt.

Parkland student Zoe Mann, 18, is the youngest member of the C-U Rollers and said that she joined the team after seeing a flyer at the college.

"It's a lot of fun, very low pressure, and there's something for everyone: good skaters, bad skaters, and people who just want to be involved." said Mann, "It's also a really good way to de-stress and I encourage people to look into the sport."

So what is roller derby? Some people hear those words and instantly think of angry, tattooed women, dressed in pink and black, throwing elbows on a skating rink. Other people have no idea what roller derby is.

"Roller derby is pretty much like any other sport," said Hurt, "People prefer football, baseball, basketball, but roller derby is another sport. A lot people don't think that the girls are athletes, but we're doing exercises, we're keeping up endurance, we're trying to build our bodies so that we can get better for our competitions."

"You have girls on teams, there are jammers (defense) and pivots (offense) and positions, and they are fighting for points," said Hurt.

She went on to explain how points are earned during a roller derby competition.

"There is one jammer from each team, there is a pivot from each team, and then there are four blockers from each team. So they're on the rink, and the jammers are the ones that actually score points. The pivots and the blockers are ahead of the jammers on the line and when the first whistle blows, they take off. They're kind of like the fighters. They're going to defend so that the opposing jammer doesn't come through and score points. When the second whistle blows, the jammers come off the line, go around once, and then the second time around is when they start scoring points," she said.

So far, the C-U Rollers haven't participated in any competitions, but Hurt said that there's a very good reason for that.

"Right now we're just practicing. We want to make sure there's less injury and things like that. I just sprained one of my quadriceps during practice, so of course we don't want to let everyone go out to a scrimmage and then all of a sudden have an injured list. We've been pretty lucky so far. There have only been minor things: sprained quadriceps, sprained knees, and things like that. Other derby teams have had broken toes, broken arms, fractured feet-it's kind of taking a risk when they go out there," she said.

According to Hurt, there are a good number of roller derby teams that are starting to come out of the woodwork, which is good because that means more competition for the C-U Rollers. Places as close as Carbondale, and Fort Wayne have teams, as do bigger cities such as Indianapolis and Chicago.

Hurt also emphasizes that the team wants to give back to the community.

The C-U Rollers hold fundraisers and community events to cover fees that include things such as road trips to competitions.

"We do like to go with local sponsors before we do anything outside of the area. We really want to help the Champaign-Urbana businesses before anything else," said Hurt, "We're also working with places like Habitat for Humanity and a woman's fund, so we are giving back to the community once the funds are there. I think that it will definitely start to catch on."

For more information about the C-U Rollers, or if interested in joining, you can visit myspace.com/505387703, champaignurbanarollers.weebly.com, or search "C-U Rollers" on facebook.com.