Collective Chaos

A view into the continuing evolution of the niche-yet-global sport through the historical lens of Ohio Roller Derby, one of the founding leagues of the Womens Flat Track Derby Association Part sports autobiography, part cultural critique, this book offers the collective experience of a tenacious group of nontraditional athletes who play, officiate, plan, schedule, market, and manage the business of a (mostly) womens amateur sports team. This modern sport, with its alternative, punk rock culture, is often a place for those whove struggled within the mainstream. But even as the sport is often home for historically marginalized groups, such as the LGBTQ+ community, roller derby organizations and participants often mirror and experience the same inequities as those in the world surrounding them. In a full-contact, theatrical sport that some consider revolutionary, the authors show that gaining truly radical self-knowledge is an ongoing, difficult process that requires love, teamwork, discipline, critical consideration of ones local and global societies, andabove all elseones place and action within them.