Trouble Makers

For Tragic City Trouble Maker Gracie Barnhill, known in the rink as Titan, competing on a roller derby team has been four and a half years in the making. 

“When I heard there was an opportunity to do a roller derby league in Birmingham that wasn’t three hours away, I was so excited,” said Barnhill, a ninth grader at Hewitt-Trussville High School. “It’s definitely something to just fall in love with — I already skate three to six times a week.”

Tragic City Trouble Makers Head Coach Rachel Fallin, who also goes by Road Rach, said that unlike some of other girls who have joined Birmingham’s only junior roller derby team, Titan is a bit ahead of the game. Many girls are still in the process of learning to skate.

“It sounds crazy, but it’s fun to watch them fall the right way,” said Fallin, who is also a Hayden High School PE teacher. “They’re little sponges, really taking it all in. I tell them they come in and train just like adults do.”

So far, the junior league is made up of around 45 girls between 7 and 18 years old from the Jefferson County area. With the creation of the Tragic City Trouble Makers, Birmingham joined other Southeastern cities such as Atlanta, Huntsville, Chattanooga, Nashville and Athens, Georgia, in having a junior roller derby league.

Since February, the Tragic City Trouble Makers have practiced at 280 Skates for an hour every Wednesday night, with players learning how to start and stop, and then advancing at different paces. Many are mastering the ability to land on their knee pads and “fall small,” Fallin said, so they don’t trip each other up.

Birmingham’s adult roller derby league, Tragic City Rollers, started in 2005. 

Fallin said parents and girls have been asking for a junior league for years, and she’s thrilled to be chosen to coach it. Tragic City League President Heather Meadows, also known as Claw and Order, was the one who got the junior league going. 

As of April, Fallin said the league has been a hit in Birmingham, and community members have been showing support by reaching out to offer the girls sponsorships. 

“Roller derby is really a great sport for kids because anyone can do it. We take them even if they don’t know how to skate, [if] they’ve never been an athlete,” Fallin said.

Roller derby is not like most sports, Fallin said, where everyone grew up knowing the basics. Most people can run and kick and know the general rules of “traditional sports,” but in roller derby, it takes time to get the hang of the game and pick out a derby name, she said.

Roller derby is a contact sport where two teams of five face each other in the rink. Each team has four blockers, who try to keep the opposing team from scoring, and one jammer, who aims to score a point by making it around the rink. Players can use their hips and shoulders to block people from scoring, but it is against official rules to be rougher than that. 

“Roller derby requires a lot of passion. You can’t just kind of be there because then you’re going to get hit,” Barnhill said. “It doesn’t come naturally for a lot of people — it doesn’t come naturally for me.”

Barnhill said it has taken her a long time to get to the point where she’s comfortable on her skates, and it’s a lot of trial and error. In roller derby, it’s also important that players learn how to skate right next to each other without tripping before they graduate onto “bumping each other around a little bit,” Fallin said.

Even though the Tragic City Trouble Makers are hoping to have their first bout with another junior league in August, Fallin said they’re going to wait and see how much the girls have progressed.

“It’s just one of those sports where you really, really want to be ready before you get out there and play a game because you don’t want injuries,” Fallin said.

One of the first things Fallin and assistant head coach Bethany Snow explained was that although roller derby is an aggressive sport, Fallin said, “it’s not a sport where you bring your aggression to the tracks.” Rather, it’s a full contact sport with rules just like in any sport with physical contact, she said.

“People think that roller derby is the place where when you’re in a bad mood, you can come out and hit some girls,” Fallin said. “That is not what this is. You lift each other up, and it’s very much a team sport.”

Over time, Fallin said the girls will develop trust and learn to depend on their teammates in order to be successful and win games.

“It’s a sport where we are playing offense and defense all at the same time, so we are constantly having to communicate with each other,” Fallin said. “It’s not a sport where you can get out there and be the best all by yourself.”

Teammates learn to take pride in each other, Fallin said, as well as the fact that roller derby is specifically known as being a women’s — or in this case, girl’s — sport.

“You have soccer, and then you have women’s soccer, and you have basketball and women’s basketball. Well, in roller derby, you have roller derby and then you have men’s roller derby,” Fallin said. “It’s one of the few sports where it’s actually like that.”

Barnhill said it’s awesome to be able to play with all girls cause “you’re showing people how rough and tough you can be while also being graceful and elegant.”

Practices for the junior leagues are run the same way as they are for the adult league, Fallin said, with the team eventually scrimmaging each other. 

“It’s amazing, and I’m not just saying this, how much they have progressed already,” Fallin said. “Like the very first practice they couldn’t even stay up, they were like a baby giraffe on ice and needing to clench onto someone’s hand or a wall, and now these girls are already just figuring it out.”

Currently, Fallin said they don’t have the specifics on how they’re going to split the girls up into teams, but they will be playing girls closer to their own age, she said. In the near future, they will also be involved in the community through several charity events and with this year’s Tragic City Charity Partner, the Magic City Acceptance Center. 

Email juniors@tragiccityrollers.com to get involved or go to tragiccityrollers.com.