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Gainesville Roller Rebels stay afloat amid pandemic
Roller Rebels anxious to start practicing again The Roller Rebels pose for a team picture.
Marilee Griffin walked into the Martin Luther King Jr. Multipurpose Center on Oct. 5, 2019, sat on the creaky, dark blue bleachers and buckled her shiny, dark red skateboard helmet.
The helmet matches everything about Griffin especially her retro red lipstick and fiery-colored hair.
She then strapped on her black-and-red-outlined knee pads and wrist guards. She slid on her rose-colored knee-high socks and her quad black skates with red laces.
On the track, she’s night and day from the nine other skaters zipping around the 88-foot, oval-shaped roller derby. Mostly because she pairs her red accessories with her grass-colored Swamp City Sirens jersey.
The Swamp City Sirens clung to a hard-fought 147-138 win over the Gold Coast Derby Grrls. Gainesville’s local roller derby team saved its most heart-pounding victory of the season for its final game.
That was Oct. 5, 2019. No one could have predicted at the time that the team would not play another bout for over a year.
2020 has given the Gainesville Roller Rebels new challenges, but the women, gender expansive and gender non-conforming skaters stick together, hopeful for better days ahead.
Gainesville’s roller derby history
Founded by Catherine Seeman in 2007, the Rebels joined the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association in 2013. The WFTDA sets the standards for rankings, rules and competition each year as the international governing body of women’s flat-track roller derby.