"Dealing with" fresh meat

I've been posting on Skatelog, because it is an awesome resource for contacting other leagues and finding out how other leagues do things.

One of the discussions we are having there is about how leagues are "dealing with fresh meat". Now, I don't really like the term "dealing with"; it sounds like they're a problem or something. They're certainly not. But I found out that some other leagues seem to have a "tear them down" attitude where new skaters get yelled at if they can't keep up with the vets. Some leagues say that derby is tough, and so only the people who are sufficiently tough mentally (to withstand getting yelled at and so on) will make it in the game. Maybe a baptism of fire will work for some, but I don't think that is the right way to go, generally speaking.

I'd like to think that I was a T-bone. Or maybe a sirloin.

New skaters are important for leagues because they breathe new life into them. I mean, our league is pretty new as it is, but I think it's important to be dynamic in the league's personality and the direction that we want it to go in. I think that's important to nurture freshies because they are, whether we like it or not, necessary for the future of derby as a sport. You can't have roller derby being so popular if nobody does or supports it. That just seems to be obvious.

What people tend to forget is that fresh meat are simply people who are interested enough in wanting to do derby that they will go to a training session. If they are interested, then why treat them like shit and make them lose heart in something that we (as skaters) find to be one of the most awesome things that a human can possibly do? How would you feel if you were shit at something because you're new at it, and people were a dick to you for that? If anything, being nice to freshies is really a lesson in humility. We were all once shit skaters, and I'm pretty sure that the reason we stuck with it was because we were, whether we care to acknowledge it or not, encouraged by people who were better than we were. When you've got minimal skills, any acknowledgement of improvement is valuable.

I think it's important to give freshies the help that they need to develop into good skaters. We used to throw people in the deep end, and some of them would find it so difficult they'd be scared to come back. Nurturing them (without babying them, of course) lets them develop the skills and confidence that they need in their own time. In addition, including the freshies in off-skate bonding helps them stick with it too. I guess people who are freshies aspire to work harder to be whities and then yellows, because you can see people in your cohort move up, and you've already developed bonds with them and you'd want to move up too.


I really like my league because of how it treats the freshies. We seem to be friendlier than a lot of other leagues, and more supportive of our new members. I think the reason the league is expanding so quickly is simply because, besides training a whole heap every week, we have an open-door policy where people can just come and check out what we do whenever. Hell, I would know: I have to do the paperwork for new members, and we get about 1-2 new faces at each training session. And then there's the community. You might come for the derby, but you stay for the people who are there.