The fearless, fun-loving women of the Quad City Rollers are celebrating 20 years of the nonprofit, a close-knit family that not only has a blast on the track, but works to help the community.
Sarah “T Wrecks” Eikleberry of Davenport, the team’s public relations coordinator, said this year has been particularly challenging and rewarding. With the closure of the Eldridge Community Center, the Rollers lost both their home rink and practice venue.
Since the spring, the team relocated to the QCCA Event Center (formerly QCCA Expo Center, 2621 4th Ave., Rock Island), where they’re building a new training home and partnering on grant opportunities to improve the facility.
Eikleberry and her husband Bill “Starman” Peterson (a Rollers referee) have been roller-skating for 13 years. She is a kinesiology professor at St. Ambrose University (who teaches sport management), and he’s a physics and astronomy professor at Augustana College. They’ve only been formal members of QC Rollers for eight months – they joined the team's January bootcamp looking for a new challenge to brighten the winter months.
“As local professors and lifelong learners, we quickly discovered much more than a sport. We found a vibrant, welcoming community,” she said recently. “I'm currently preparing for a rookie mixer in October, while Starman has embraced officiating and already has six games under his belt.”
“It's really incredible that any organization that is grassroots sticks around for 20 years, especially something that started as niche,” Eikleberry said Friday. “It's been really interesting, as a participant but also just as a person that studies movement building and sport, to know how the team has evolved.
“We started with fishnets and tutus, and we've kind of evolved to that compression socks era. And so it's really impressive, and I'm super proud to be a part of the team,” she said. “We've got a really dedicated, smart, caring group of people that I think want to see that through.”
“I just was waiting for my midlife crisis to hit and started entering my danger era,” she added. “I don't know why—realistically why you'd wait to be 43 years old to start, but we have a lot of friends on the team that were doing it, and I think for me I just knew I had a lot of stuff going on in my life at work, and I thought it would just be nice to not be in charge of something and truly go focus on learning a new skill.
“And I wasn't sure if I would like it, so I am working to be on the roster and compete at some point, but I knew that like being an official might also be an opportunity,” Eikleberry said. “I'll volunteer as a non-skating official, but I knew that there were like other pathways to be involved, and I needed something new. And then Starman decided to join.”
In roller derby, each team has a jammer (they wear stars on their helmets) who scores points by lapping opponents. The rest are blockers and pivots—working to stop the other team and help their own jammer break through the pack. It’s fast, physical flat-track roller derby. Expect hits, quick turns, and big energy.
In a game, skaters are “trying to fight their way through the blockers on the opposing team,” Peterson said. “There's a pack, and there's actually rules where the blockers have to skate around the track, but the blockers have to stay within a certain range of each other in order to be considered legally blocking.
"They're kind of in this tight pack, and the jammers have to try and weave through them or push through them or not get knocked off the track, because if you go out of bounds, then you have to yield your position and go back behind people.”
“It seems like there are complicated rules, but they're logical after a while,” he said. “The interesting thing that I can say in being a ref is that things happen so fast that you really have to sort of mentally be alert. As an official to see what's going on. So there's actually 7 refs on skates watching a game.”
There are also non-skating officials who are not on the track.
“I am a ref because I like to skate and I like to be in the middle of the game even if I'm not playing,” Peterson said. “And then a lot of the people who are the skating officials are being a part of it and they're watching it. So it's the whole idea of the sport in a way, I feel like, is taking this fun activity of roller skating but making it into like kind of a competitive activity. That's why there can be a lot of people connected to and involved in what's going on.”
Players can get seven penalties before being ejected, and they’re not allowed to block with arms or hands. The most common blocking is with your shoulders or hips, they said. The players always skate around the track counterclockwise, and can’t go off the track.
“There's a lot of backwards skating when you're defending against these jammers trying to break through the pack,” Eikleberry said. “And of course I would like to forward skate and just clobber somebody, but there's definitely a lot of different ways to slow down that jammer without breaking these rules, which is part of what I'm learning.”
Sometimes a jammer will leap airborne, to get points, Peterson said.
“There is some cool aerial stuff that happens in roller derby, particularly there's something called an apex jump,” he said. “The jammer is trying to get past all the other skaters. And this track is an oval, and so jammers who are good skaters will do a move where when they're coming around the top, the narrow part of that oval, they'll pick up some speed and jump across the inside of it, you know. And so as long as you land on the track, not out of bounds, then everyone you passed while you were in the air, you get the points.”
“Our jammers are all different heights and body shapes, so it's really quite interesting,” Eikleberry said, noting she and her husband like to skate at East Moline’s Skate City. “Particularly as a person that like does these more dancey moves, to watch everyone's personal style. ‘Cause some of our jammers are like 6 feet tall, and some of them are like barely 5 feet tall, and they just all use those strong bodies in different ways, and it's pretty cool.”
A “Greene-eyed” wench
Lisa “Greene-Eyed Wench” Marquez (named for Joe Greene of the Steelers) of Illinois City has been part of the Rollers since 2010, but took a break from 2014 to 2021. She works for Arc of the Quad Cities, supporting adults with special needs.
“When I came back, the last couple years coach has been trying to teach me new roller derby because I have the urge to do old roller derby where it's hitting as hard as you can and just trying to knock people over,” she said Friday. “Now it's more like there's more agility to it. It's more like strategic gameplay going on than when I started.”
“If you remember derby from the '70s, it was more like WWE, like fake punching and stuff like that,” Marquez said. “When I joined, like the flat track was trying to be more like an official real sport with real rules and not so much theatrics and stuff. And so you'll see teams moving into like— we used to have fun uniforms and like wear fishnets and tutus, and now it's more like a regular uniform.
"We occasionally have fun games to put those things on then, but it's more trying to be taken seriously.”
The derby season starts with January practices, and this year has 10 games from March to October, half at home. The Rollers didn’t have a game in July, and have been using the QCCA Event Center in Rock Island for practice (twice a week, three hours each) and games this year.
The 20th-anniversary bout will be back at RiverCenter (their former home in downtown Davenport) on Aug. 29, with alumni skating before the doubleheader matchup versus North Star Roller Derby from Minneapolis.
The Rollers lost their longtime practice facility and match home when Eldridge this year closed the city-owned Community Center and Skatepark (out of financial difficulties and liability concerns), and is planning to sell the building.
While they were sad to leave Eldridge, the team said it was not a great space for spectators (they averaged between 100-250 per game).
“Eldridge was great for the skater, the person skating, because it's the ideal floor and the ideal space, but not so much for viewing,” Marquez said. “It was very limited, but financially it wasn't too expensive, so we didn't have to do a lot to get people to come to pay our bills.”
“I think that the relocation of the venue, especially for games, I think it helps get more community members in the doors,” Eikleberry said. “But also there's a bit of education that's required to probably be a true fan of derby, 'cause as Wench said, the rules have changed, there's some technical stuff.”
They’ve been at the Rock Island center since March, and Marquez is glad it worked out.
She said when Eldridge discussed closing its center, the Rollers got an email from QCCA Event Center, “saying, if you guys want to come back here, we’d love to have you. So they've been kind of like rooting for us since all this happened,” she said. “I love the location. The location is lovely. And our first game back there, people came and were like, we're so happy you're in town, because Eldridge was such a drive.”
Eikleberry hasn’t yet met qualifications to be a member of the playing roster, but she’s active in the 50-person team, of which 15 are players on the roster.
“As a member of the team, even when you're not rostered in skating, you're supposed to have a job for the day of the bout,” she said. “I try to have a job that allows me to be in the stands so I can not only bring friends and fans and get that— get their tickets, but like, I want to be there to explain to them what's going on. And it takes a couple of jams, but then they get it and it's fun.”
The jammer is the designated scorer for brief periods of the game (typically two minutes). Marquez’s job on the team is head of merchandise. There are five players on the track at once for each team.
“You need to make your practices. You have to do 4 practices within a certain time period to qualify for the roster,” she said. “And then there's a rolling period after that you have to make like another four. And that ends up being like one of the 2 practices a week. So you have to make those two requirements. You have to pay dues and be caught up on dues.”
Playing throughout Midwest
There are also women’s roller derby teams in Peoria, Rockford, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and Cedar Falls. The Rollers mainly play in the Midwest, including Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, and not all roster players travel.
“This is a grassroots organization, so these are just normal people,” Eikleberry said. “We're normal people. We all have our day jobs and it's a lot.” They typically require a minimum of 10 players for each game, who are rotated in and out.
“I've just started practicing doing full practices with the team instead of like warming up with the team and then going to work with the newbies,” Eikleberry said. “Some of the drills we do at the end of the night— the other night we were doing a mirroring drill where you pretend to be a defender guarding a jammer. It was 3 minutes at a time. I was wiped at the end. I couldn't believe how much energy— and some of it's mental energy, but like it is— your whole body is involved for those 3 minutes.”
The team players range in age, from 19 to over 50, Peterson said. The Rollers just hosted a newbie boot camp Aug. 2 at the QCCA Event Center.
“I'm a physical educator, that is my training, and so I was a little nervous when I started that newbie boot camp that I was just gonna have some weirdo making me do 5,000 squats and like that it wasn't gonna make sense,” Eikleberry said. “But it really did make sense, and there was an emphasis from the first practice— no skates. How do you take care of your body? How do you stretch? How do you warm up? How do you cool down? What's the importance? How do you fall?
“And so I think our newbies just put their skates on for the second day of newbie boot camp, and it was pretty exciting to watch them,” she said. “And we had many basics that we needed to learn, even as people with a lot of experience on the skates.”
Marquez said the Rollers have always been about giving back to the community, and when at the RiverCenter years ago, they used to attract 500 people to games, and collected a percentage of proceeds for a local charity, like King’s Harvest.
“Since we haven't been getting as many people, we've kind of backed away giving that dollar amount, and now we're doing like donation-based,” she said. “People come and bring a donation to whatever charity, and then we have a game at halftime called Chuck-A-Wheel. It's kind of like Chuck-a-Puck in hockey where you take a roller skate wheel and you throw it to the middle of the track, and if you hit the target, you win a prize.
"A lot of it's like a gift certificate to get whatever you want at our merch. That’s been pretty successful this year. This year, the next bout is for Clock Incorporated,” the Rock Island LGBTQ+ community center.
Part of the team community outreach includes volunteering at local events, organizing blood drives, collecting coats/school supplies for other local charities during games, donating tickets/baskets for benefits and when possible writing a check to local causes, Eikleberry said.
Part of Alternating Currents for 1st time
They’re excited about being part of Alternating Currents for the first time, in downtown Rock Island, at the public parking lot (3rd Avenue and 17th Street), at 6 p.m. Friday, Aug. 14 for a free public scrimmage.
“It's going to be the only thing going on in Rock Island on Friday the 14th at that time slot,” Eikleberry said. “From 6 to 7:30, the team's going to be doing like an informational demo. It'd be a great time to get some video, and it's free to the community. I think we got Congressman Sorensen stopping by. His office is right down the street, and he's also been really supportive and a great ally of women and gender non-conforming people playing sports.”
The Rollers were also part of the QC Pride Fest in June at Schwiebert Park, Rock Island.
Marquez loves the Rollers for two reasons.
“The community, having like this family almost, and then hitting people. Coach doesn't like to hear that, but I am here to hit people. That's what I want to do,” she said. It also helps boost her self-confidence.
“I’m a bit of a fitness junkie, so for me it has been a really wonderful outlet, including the contact, but having something to do that I don't have to be exclusively in charge of and actually still get to learn and of course make friends for six hours a week, especially in those dark, gloomy January months,” Eikleberry said. “It was something I could bring my partner to do, and we just had a great time. So it's really enjoyable and it keeps me moving.”
“I really enjoy skating,” Peterson said. “I’ve been doing it for a long time. You know, I did it when I was a kid. But you can only do so much maybe if you're just going to the skating rink and like trying to learn some cool spins or something like that. And so then like this idea of doing an activity where I can skate and also participate in something fun with really, really cool people.
“Like everyone on the team is interesting and has a lot going on,” he said. “That just adds all this fun to skating again.”
Taking on a different personality
Having nicknames creates new personalities for players, Eikleberry said.
“I think anytime you put a helmet on for a sport, you're kind of taking on a new personality, but the name doesn't hurt,” she said, noting her dinosaur name fits her.
“I have these short arms and this powerful body, so yeah, I think so,” she said.
Marquez said Wench is “tough, confident, and strong.” Peterson added: “She'll mess you up and throw you out of the bar if you're misbehaving.”
“It’s a good workout. I have to do a lot of physical lifting with my job,” Marquez said. “Occasionally I'm sore a little bit. But I think it's more good than bad for me personally. Usually get a nice bruise on occasion. We have a special thread in our team Discord of just like bruises and scars everyone has got.”
The Rollers website says roller derby is the fastest growing sport in the world and the team mission “is to develop amateur female and gender non-conforming athletes for national and international competition, foster the physical and mental strength found in these athletes, provide quality sports entertainment for our fans, promote the sport of roller derby and make a positive impact in our community through outreach.”
Consisting of a diverse group of athletes, the members of the QC Rollers are comprised of two teams - the QC Rollers All-Stars, a seasoned team of skaters that represents the league in national sanctioned game play, and the B team, which competes regional and whose focus is to refine skills and strategy while still skating competitively.
The Rollers -- part of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) -- operates as a not-for-profit organization and are skater owned and operated. The organization is entirely run by volunteers - no one receives monetary compensation - this includes the skaters themselves, those who train the players, the officials who enforce the rules and the board of directors who run the organization. Funds raised go towards further development and operation of the league.
Its upcoming events include:
* Skate with the Rollers Saturday, Aug. 8 from 7-10 p.m. at The Landing in Bettendorf. Admission is $5, with $3 for skate rental.
* 20th Anniversary Bout at the RiverCenter in Davenport on Aug. 29, which will be a doubleheader, with the first game at 6 p.m. It will include a kids’ area with face painting and balloons; screen printing of custom T-shirts, a PG burlesque performance, vendors, and a silent auction. Tickets are $10 in advance (available HERE) or $12 at the door.
That event will include a food drive for Clock, Inc: LGBT+ Community Center, which is dedicated to creating a safe and supportive community center, offering vital resources, mental health programs, empowerment, and advocacy for the LGBT+ community to thrive without fear of discrimination.
For a complete schedule, click HERE.
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