I’ve had the opportunity to know Tabrina for about four years. We’ve talked here and there, but I wanted to get to the core of who the skater formerly known as QT.
Box: Jumping right into it, what is your roller derby origin story?
Tabrina: From the fiery pits of hell I was summoned. J/k I played 3 sports growing up & 2 (softball, basketball) in college. At that time there weren’t any post collegiate women’s sports, that weren’t mixed bar leagues. When I was hanging out with my friends, I was aggressive because I didn’t have anywhere for that energy to go. My friend Mike found the recruiting page on MySpace and they had an intervention for me. I recall Mike saying “Look at this really cool sport, where you can hit people on purpose”. I went to the first recruitment open skate, mostly to see if I could still skate after 12 years. And I signed up. It’s one of the bravest things I’ve ever done, though I did bring (husband) Andy with me because I was terrified to do anything by myself then.
B: Roller derby is very scary if you are approaching it for the first time and with very little information about how it works. It’s an incredibly brave thing to approach it when there’s still so much mystery behind a new sport like this. Was there an adaptation period or did you love it immediately?
T: I loved it immediately. It helped that we were all learning it together.
B: At what point did you settle on your derby name? When did you decide to change it and what led you to make that decision?
T: When we first started, we had to register our names on ‘Two Evils’. It was a website for derby names & you couldn’t have the same name as anyone. For obvious reasons, that fell out of favor. All of my friends call me T. I signed it with ~T. My best friend Kate came up with several variations. CU~T was my favorite and also not taken. Eventually as roller derby became more of a sport and we were competing at the Global level. I didn’t want to skate under a pseudonym. I wanted to be recognized by my given name. Plus despite pronouncing it QT(or some people called me Cutie), in print it’s unmistakably not family friendly [she chuckles her evil CU~T chuckle]
B: Lol, most definitely not. But you’ve mentioned playing at a Global level, what was that experience like? Where did you get to go to show off your mad roller derby skills?
T: It’s hard to put into words. I’ve played in games against the best (i.e., Bonnie Thunders & Gotham’s Defense in the early days). It is surreal, but you have to act like you’ve been there before. You can’t be star-struck. I would tell our team, “They are humans like you & Me.” We all had to go out and grind jam by jam.
Let’s see… I have played in Tampa, New York City, Montreal, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Kitchener for tournaments. Playoffs have been in Omaha, Vancouver, Seattle, Dallas, Atlanta and Pennsylvania. I know there are others, but my old brain can’t recall. I did go to Roller Derby World Cup 2019 in Manchester, England to watch my friends & and teammates play. I’ve been places. Traveling is one of the things I miss the most.
B: During your time with the league, you’ve obviously been a skater, but what are some of the other roles that you have taken on? Are there any in particular that you miss or that you didn’t get to do that you would like to at some point in the future?
T: Oh I’ve done several different things. And remember for the first 5 years(at least) we pretty much had to do everything including sell paper tickets, NSO & go to PR events.
I was involved in the following heavily: Production, Events, Board Rep, Not For Profit Board, Training, Safety Committee, WFTDA Rep, D2 Tournament Planning (we hosted D2 Tournament in 2012), Captain, Coach(Devil Dollies 2 seasons) and most recently formed and have been running The Alumni Group. I still come in to run a practice, if a team invites me.
I don’t think there’s anything that I haven’t done, that I wanted to. I toyed with the idea of coaching Travel, but then I remembered how much work & time that position requires. I’m enjoying having SO much time now.
B: How true that is! Is there anything that you would like to add? It’s been 20 years, what are some things you hope to see from this league in the future?
T: One of my biggest accomplishments was playing in 100 sanctioned games. Not all travel team games each season are sanctioned. You might get 5-ish a season, none during the covid isolation years, the 9 months I tried to retire in 2018, plus Playoffs are only every other year now. I’m super proud of reaching that goal. I also went 6 games without getting a penalty in my last season, which included all 3 games at playoffs.
I would also like to give a shout out to my Husband Andy. If it weren’t for his support, I never would have done all of this. He started as a fan, became the Saucies unofficial hot pepper mascot and then became the best Coach I’ve ever had.
When I was young and competitive I would say I wanted the league to be in the top 10 and go to the WFTDA Championship Tournament. Now that I’m old and a smidge less competitive, I just want this league to succeed. I’d like a rec league, but i don’t want to start it [looks at everyone else hopefully]. I also think we could have a Men’s and possibly an Open division(s), if we had more track time. I want everyone from Alumni to current members to know that I’m so [expletive] proud of everyone. Being in roller derby is like another full time job. IYKYK. Thank you to everyone for all of their dedication, hard work & sacrifices that culminated in 20 years of derby here. I honestly don’t know who I’d have become without it. Here’s to many more decades! Slugs & Kisses,
~T aka CU~T aka ~Tabrina