Pittsburgh’s roller derby youth cruise to national championships, where teams center inclusivity

For the first time ever, the Pittsburgh Derby Brats will compete in the national junior roller derby championships.

The region’s youth derby team will face five other teams this weekend in Rockville, Maryland. Among them is the league’s defending champions: the Philly Roller Derby Juniors.

“They're really good, but we've been working our butts off,” said Cassi, one of the Brats’ more senior players.

Cassi — known as His ‘n Hearse among her teammates — has been skating with the Brats since she was 10 years old. Now, at 17, she will be among the 20 players competing in the tournament this weekend.

The Derby Brats beat teams from Cincinnati and Santa Cruz in June, qualifying them for the championship tournament for the first time in their 10-year history.

“Even us going to championships means so much to us that it holds a lot more value than winning over and over again,” Cassi said.

Inside Monroeville’s Pro+Sports complex, the Brats run drills that require players to practice blocking their opponents with their hips. In derby, teams score points by skating laps around the other team. Games, or bouts, as they’re called, are fast-paced and full-contact.

Sydney Ryan, or Coach Smash, was one of the Derby Brats’ original eight skaters when the team was established in 2013. She said the championship tournament will require a higher level of competition than the Brats are necessarily used to playing.

They’ll play the Pixies, a team from Spokane, Washington, Saturday in the tournament’s first round. Ryan said she has seen the team rise to the level of their competition, and it now boasts a roster of more than 80 skaters.

“It has been 10 years in the making. Everybody in this league has worked really hard to get to this point,” Ryan said. “To thrive enough that we're able to really focus on the skaters’ skills like that and to get them to that high level.”

Inclusivity baked into the sport

Ryan has witnessed the Derby Brats evolve in other ways, too. While the team previously allowed only female-identifying players, in 2021, it went “open division”, meaning players of all genders are allowed.

Ryan said she and the other coaches pushed for that change so that all kids could experience the sport.

“It’s different than everything else because no matter what your gender is, no matter what type of person you are, your body size, you can succeed and do well,” Ryan continued. “That's something that I feel like not a lot of other sports have.”

For kids like Si — whose skate name is Forrest Bump — that change meant a lot. He joined the team six years ago after reading "Roller Girl," a graphic novel about a youth derby team.

Si said when the team became all-gender, it created a safer, more welcoming community.

“With figuring out like my gender stuff, personally, it was very affirming,” he said. “In terms of the team, I think I feel a lot [closer] with my teammates now that there's nothing really dividing us.”

With his teammates, Si added, he can be more comfortable than at school.

The team’s move to model inclusivity echoes policies set by the Junior Roller Derby Association on a national scale. The league does not set minimum standards of masculinity or femininity for its members, nor does it differentiate between members who identify as female, male, transgender or non-binary.

That aligns with derby’s practices historically: coed leagues have long been a part of the sport, known for welcoming openly gay players and all ethnicities.

In JRDA, only a player’s self-identified gender and comfort are considered for eligibility, according to the league’s membership policy. That stands apart when considered amongst the barrage of laws broadly banning students from joining sports teams that don't align with the sex they were assigned at birth passed over the past three years in at least 19 states.

Players with the Brats range from ages 9 to 17, with the youngest players learning from the oldest ones. Regardless of age or skill level, all of them stand in the throes of adolescence and defining their identity, in terms of gender and otherwise.

“We see them at a very pivotal point in their lives,” Ryan said of the skaters. “They're going to change so much and it's like, ‘We're here for you and we're here for all the changes, and we're still your coach. No matter what you're going through, it doesn't change.’”

More than winning championships, Ryan said inclusivity remains at the heart of the sport.