Satisfying their need
for speed

By Tom Waring
Times Staff Writer

Rhawnhurst’s Dee Thurner spends her days as a floral designer.
At night, the 27-year-old woman transforms into "Black-Eyed Susan" and bangs bodies as part of the Penn Jersey She Devils roller derby team.
"We’re normal everyday girls," she said, "then we’re bad-ass chicks at night."
Ken Sikes used to attend the old Philadelphia Warriors roller derby matches. Back then, teams of men and women would skate on a banked track. Games usually featured a team that was the fan favorite against an opponent that used every trick in the book to win.
The heyday of roller derby ended more than 20 years ago, but Sikes and partner Greg Spencer are part of a nationwide movement to make the sport popular again.
Two years ago, they began plans to create a local league. About a year ago they founded the She Devils, an all-women’s league, and the competitors practice and play at the Cornwells Skating Center in Bensalem.
Right now, there are more than 40 women on the team. They range from 22-year-old Liz Lazeney — who skates as "Miss Chievous" — to 45-year-old Liz Profy. Her alter ego is "La Bruscha," which means the witch in Portuguese.
"She’s the best blocker we have," said team captain Pam Wick.
Profy said roller derby is great exercise. She’s lost 20 pounds skating around the track. Profy, a hairstylist and massage therapist from Huntingdon Valley, gets excited every time she laces up the skates.
"I’ve never had such an adrenaline rush," she said.
Sikes and Spencer hired former roller derby stars Judy Sowinski and Arnold "Skip" Schoen as volunteer coaches.
All women 18 and older are invited to take part. Whatever money the team raises is devoted to support of the league.
The players were divided into two teams — the Fallen Angels and the Sadistic Sweethearts — for a scrimmage in November. The next match is set for April 1.
By then, the league hopes to recruit more players and sponsors. Helping in that effort is Rollergirls, the new show on cable network A&E about a Texas-based roller derby league.
Sikes estimates that there are about 40 leagues in the United States.
"They’re popping up every day," he said.
The She Devils play three periods. It’s five against five, and points are awarded for each opponent passed by the "jammer."
Like the old roller derby, there are elements of theater, but the competition is real. "We don’t rig anything," Sikes said. "The best man wins, or the best woman, in this case."
Wick, the team captain, is a 33-year-old married mother of three who skates as "The Irish Roller." The former Mayfair resident, who works as a manager for a direct-mail company in the Far Northeast, recalled that she always loved watching Sowinski, who played for the New York Bombers, Los Angeles T-Birds and Philadelphia Warriors in a career that stretched from 1959 to the early ’80s.
"I watched Judy every Saturday at eleven o’clock on Channel 48. The T-Birds were my favorite," she said.
Now she gets to skate for Sowinski, a member of the Roller Derby Hall of Fame. The coach is demanding of her players as she stands in the middle of the rink, a whistle around her neck.
Wick has been skating since she was 18 months old. Today, she’s fulfilling a dream of playing roller derby.
"Since I was a little girl, it’s all I’ve wanted to do," she said.
Wick has enjoyed meeting other women with the same interests, and the competition enables her to release her aggression.
The league puts a premium on safety. The players wear helmets, elbow and knee pads and wrist guards. Still, the games are physical.
"There haven’t been any broken bones . . . yet," Wick said.
Sowinski, 65, of South Philadelphia, thinks roller derby lost its popularity because it got away from skating and into theatrics. Having just retired after working for 19 years in a hospital laboratory, she hopes to be part of a rejuvenated roller derby.
"It’s becoming bigger and bigger," she said.
Sowinski played a "bad" character during her 15 years with the Bombers. She didn’t tolerate referees, opponents, the fans, "and anybody that got in my way." She’s mellowed since then.
While the coach wouldn’t mind seeing men added to the league, or a return to the banked track, she thinks the current format is fine. The flat track makes for exciting action, she says.
"On this floor, if you fall, you’re not moving," Sowinski said.
At 26, Leigh Sampson is a little too young to remember the glory days of roller derby. She’s watched videos, though.
The middle-school music teacher appreciates the rough-and-tumble approach perfected a generation ago.
"I kind of like knocking people around," she said.
While the ladies play physical on the track, they’re friends at the end of the game. There are no cliques. Jessica "Jezza Hell" Davis calls it a "sisterhood."
A 28-year-old student from Delaware County, Davis welcomes new recruits. If you can’t skate, the coaches and players will teach you.
Davis loves the sport. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t drive 45 minutes each way to practice twice a week. She wouldn’t take part in team fund-raisers or seek out sponsors. Her goal is to make roller derby a career and travel to face teams in New York, Chicago and elsewhere.
To be a member of the She Devils, Davis said, a woman has to make a commitment to the sport. Every one of them ends up loving it.
"You eat, sleep and breathe roller derby," she said. ••
For more information on the team, call Pam Wick at 267-812-0391 or visit myspace.com/pennjerseyshedevils or www.pennjerseyshedevils.blogspot.com
Reporter Tom Waring can be reached at 215-354-3034 or twaring@phillynews.com