OREGON'S LGBTO NEWSMAGAZINE
school team or think a sweeper is someone who
cleans the floors,” according to Wong. The
NetRippers’ annual summer tournament is
tentatively scheduled for July 1-3, with a loca
tion to be determined. The highlight of the
season for the club, the summer tournament is
a weekend-long engagement with social events
bookending competitive play. Wong says the
board is working on this year’s tournament be
ing a fundraiser for a local nonprofit in the
LGBTQcommunity.
“Every year our tournament gets bigger, and
feedback from participants tells us that ours is
one of the best and most fun tournaments they
go to,” says Wong. “We are becoming more in
volved in giving back to our community
through various efforts.”
NetRippers currently has coed and men’s
teams playing at Portland Indoor Soccer (418
SE Main St.) and Soccerplex (8785 SW Bea-
verton-Hillsdale Highway), plus outdoor men’s,
women’s and coed teams. Rain or shine, the
club plays year-round.
“I’ve developed many great friendships and I
always look forward to practice and games,”
says Wong. “I know I have such welcoming
friends and friends-to-be ready to have fun
and play some soccer.”
Alliances (GSAs) and K-12 athletic depart
ments alike will work together to fill the gap in
terms of tools and resources to address ho
mophobia and transphobia in sports and physi
cal education.
“In working with students in local high
schools and talking with students at Gay-
Straight Alliances, students who participate in
sports programs are much more closeted than
the mainstream students,” says Brown. “Ho
mophobic attitudes among coaches, teammates
and peer leaders, and just the general anxiety
around the impact that coming out would have
on team attitudes and cohesion are all reasons
that LGBT youth might not come out to team
mates in high school or even college. The new
initiative by GLSEN hopes to help start a con
versation about how to change those attitudes.”
Vancouver, Wash, high school student Brad
Usselman, who, along with cross-country friends
Benjamin Newcomer and Robert Scott, created
a blog in December 2010 detailing their lives as
— sports—
Interested in join in g up w ith the NetRippers
Football Club? To j i n d out when scheduled prac
tices or games w ill be held\ as w ell as membership
information, visit netrippers.org.
— R yan J. P rado
Rolling Thunder
Rose City dominates the derby scene
APRIL 1. 2011
ment aspect, the action is all real.”
Roller derby bouts are divided into two-
minute “jams,” during which one player (the
“jammer”) tries to push through the other
team’s “blockers" to score points. Bouts consist
of two 30-minute periods.
W hile roller derby may not be W W E on
skates, it’s still physically and mentally de
manding. As such, the sport attracts a host of
tough ladies, many of them queer.
“I think queer women are drawn to derby for
a lot of reasons,” McClane, a member of the
Guns N Rollers, says. “For one, it is a very open
and accepting environment, full of women from
all walks of life and different backgrounds, and
yet there is a real sense of community. It is a sport
where women come first and are valued for being
fast, strong and aggressive. It’s also a sport where
women of any body type can play and be an asset
to their team. I think another factor is that derby
is outside of the mainstream and has a kind of
‘underground’ feel, which I think appeals to a lot
of queer people whose lives may be outside of the
mainstream in many ways.”
Roller derby may have started as a scripted
form of entertainment, but it has reemerged in
the last 10 years as a serious sport with an
equally dedicated Portland following.
The Rose City Rollers is the largest roller
derby league in the world, with 11 competitive
teams (including junior and senior leagues), a
training program (Fresh Meat) for aspiring
competitive team members and a recreational
team for those who just want to have fun.
“It is a common misconception that we fight
or throw punches and elbows on the track.
Some may remember the version of roller derby
televised in the 1960s and 1970s with its staged
fights for the entertainment of spectators,” says
For more on the Rose C ity Rollers, v isit rosecity-
28-year-old Christine McClane (aka Roller rollers.com or catch them in action A p ril 2 3 a t the
Eclipse), “but today’s roller derby is a legitimate M em orial Coliseum (3 0 0 N. W inning Way).
sport, and though there is still an entertain
— E rin R ook
teenaged gay athletes, agrees that the program
will help usher in new perspectives on ho
mophobia and transphobia in sports.
“Programs like this can drastically change the
school climate,” explains Usselman. “It goes di
rectly to a clique that is stereotyped as being
homophobic, and to change that stereotype
would allow more LGBT students the opportu
nity to feel accepted as well as comfortable.”
Usselman says his Skyview High School
track team has been nothing but accepting to
ward him since he’s come out and that he hasn’t
felt excluded in any way—a positive sign that
things may be getting better already. The expo
sure given Usselman’s blog, “Walking the Road:
One Common Goal,” along with the rise in the
number of GSAs in public schools has certainly
been a factor in combating bullying in schools.
Still, as Presgraves reminds, nearly 9 out o f 10
LGBTQ^ students experience harassment in
school each year. W hen asked what locations
on campus they felt most unsafe, the most
common answer was the locker room or ath
letic field.
The GLSEN Sports Project website features
basic game plans for coaches, parents, athletic
directors and students, and Presgraves says the
word is spreading quickly. Pat Griffin, the proj
ect’s coordinator, has been at the forefront of
addressing homophobia and transphobia in
sports for years. Presgraves says Griffin has al
ready attended two school athletics-related
conferences to promote the project and support
educators and coaches who are interested in
utilizing GLSEN ’s resources.
“We are confident,” says Presgraves, “that
now is the time when we really can change the
game.”
For more information on how your school can help
implement initiatives through
Changing the
Game: The G L S E N Sports Project, v isit sport.
glsen.org. To read Brad Usselmans blog, visit
bradrobertben. wordpress. com.
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