Derby Name: The Killustrator

Number: 16

Team(s): Cleveland Steamers, Burning River All-Stars

Position(s): jammer, tail blocker

How would you compare Lehigh to BRRG?
I dunno, that’s kind of like comparing your first love and the person you wind up spending the rest of your life with.* With your first love you have sweet memories of the heady rush of infatuation, the excitement and the fights and the reconciliations, and the ultimate tearful emotional parting.  After a while time forms its capsule around those memories and you accept that it was a wonderful period in your life but one that is closed.
With love later in life, you’ve been around the block a few times and you know better what to expect.  Both you and your partner have established identities, boundaries and expectations.  The bond is steadier, less easily buffeted by winds of passion, and based on mutual respect.  Hardship does not shake the foundations of the relationship, but rather it provides an opportunity to strengthen the bond through overcoming adversity together.
*Really, honestly, how often are they the same person?

What has been your greatest accomplishment in derby?
Skating with the Hostile City Honeys (Philly Roller Girls), including their final bout as a team, was an honor.  Those ladies are my first roller derby heroes.  Travelling with the Lehigh Valley Roller Girls in June 2007 to play the New Skids on the Block in Montreal in the first international bout of the roller derby revival* was another great moment.  Montreal has really gotten around since then (honestly, it’s hard to miss them), but I can say I got to play them first and on their home turf!  Chronologically latest but not least was going to North Central Regional Tournament with the Burning River All-Stars.  It was the first time I got to see the culmination of a year’s teamwork pay off in such a grand way, and I feel privileged to have been a part of it.
*Feel free to fact-check me.  I ain’t skeered.

What team do you enjoy playing the most?
Out of our home teams, I have to say the Rolling Pinups.  They’re all a bunch of super sweet gals, they play a hard game and have a great attitude before, during and after a bout.

How did the gold Killustrator outfit come about?
The Promitard is a joke that has gotten way, way out of hand.  So I found this spandex unitard at a Salvation Army thrift store one day for a buck-fifty, and I buy it and wear it to an informal scrimmage.  It got enough laughs for me to think that I should try sewing one myself.  The gold one was made before, but debuted after the blue and navy unitard I wore at the Hazard Cup 2009.  The BRRG awards banquet rolled around and I was scratching up something to wear, and I thought to myself that I haven’t worn the gold one in public yet.  I slap some ridiculous organza and silk roses one-shoulder pouf on it to make it sufficiently “prommy”, and Bob’s your uncle, the Promitard was born.  Apparently unitards are my shtick now, which just goes to show that you shouldn’t encourage me.

What do you do when you are not playing derby?
I send emails about roller derby.  I also play World of Warcraft, work at my day job as a medical artist, love/antagonize my fiancé Josh a.k.a. Ogre, and find the occasional free moment to sew something.  Right now it’s mostly the former.

How did you come about your name?
I can’t take any credit.  My friend Paul Snyder came up with that one, as well as the runner-up name “The Lenexacutioner”.  (My hometown is Lenexa, Kansas.)

What has been your fondest derby memory so far?
The very first day I came to see a roller derby practice, one of the refs told me something useful: “Derby is like the military – you don’t have to like each other, you just have to work together.”

What first got you into roller derby?
I had no friends!  I moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, for a job in October 2006 with just my dog, Jeff, and my worldly possessions.  Jeff’s a great guy but I was in need of human companionship, so I tried to put myself out there and mingle a bit.  As luck would have it, the first gal I met was a rollergirl.  I attended one practice and there was no turning back.  I had all the friends and family I could want.

Who are you inspired by?
I don’t really have heroes of the put-on-a-pedestal sort.  The people around me who I know and work with every day influence me to improve myself.  I mean, how many times do I have to get hit by Halo’s ass before I try to figure out how to avoid it?  When I see my teammates’ commitment to the sport, I’m inspired to match their dedication with my own.  To give any less would be a disservice to their efforts.

Finish the phrase: Killustrator is to the Steamers as _________ is to __________?
Killustrator : Cleveland Steamers :: peanut butter : chocolate.  Two great tastes that taste great together.

What has derby done for you as an individual?
What hasn’t derby done for me?  I’m in better physical shape than before I started playing.  I’ve learned how to work with a team, since I’d never played sports before.  It’s gotten me over a certain degree of stage fright; you can’t be scared to get out on that jam line in front of the crowd, let alone do it in a spandex unitard.  It’s familiarized me with my alcohol tolerance better than college or the years following did.  It’s made me more confident and sure of who I am as a person, and introduced me to an incredible number of amazing women who are all so very different but all equally awesome.

What has been your favorite travel team bout so far?
I hate to disappoint the BRRG fans, but it’s hard to top playing in Montreal: announcers trash-talking in French, PBR-can pyramids on turn 2, and a hockey crowd that booed you while you skated and cheered you at the after-party.  It was kind of like being a heel in professional wrestling.  The recent game in Naptown was a bit like that too, except fans in Indiana have no sense of humor.  I kind of love being booed anyway, it gives me an excuse to be a jackass.  A 9-year-old girl at the Naptown game told me I sucked afterwards.  How precious is that?

What are your 2010 goals?
To survive my fourth season playing roller derby.

What can the fans expect from 2010 Steamers compared to 2009 Steamers?
Spandex uniforms!  I kid, I kid.  But srsly, we have a lot of great things going for us.  We have a solid core of returning veterans who are motivated to continue the momentum we built up last year.  We have five amazing rookies added to the team: B. Onya Guard, Cupquake, GrrAnimal, Mosh Spice and Skinner.  Our rookies have great attitudes and an enthusiasm that’s really inspiring the rest of the team.  What can the fans expect from the Steamers this year?  More of the same: we’re still a well-rounded team that works hard and has fun and is ready to kick ass on the flat track!

What do you feel will help propel roller derby further?
Three things: a musical, inclusion in the Olympics, and roller derby in high school girls’ sports.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 9:23 am and is filed under Previous Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.