Dedication

I really admire and respect the dedication that has been given to the sport of roller Derby here on the East Coast. It is still relatively new here and I see allot of girls that love to play, love their leagues, and dedicate allot of time and effort into helping their leagues to grow.
I know very little about the beginning of roller derby in my home town, other then it began. From what I have heard the first practice a ton of girls showed up, and never came back. However a few really wanted to do it and learn and stuck with it, and those girls are now playing and helping train new girls who are coming in.
It takes allot of time and effort to be involved in this sport. Practice several times a week, buying initial gear, upgrading when needed, not to mention paying dues so you can continue to have a place to practice. Various fundraisers so you can pad that bank account to squeeze in a few arena practices and so on and so on and so on.
Yes, I added an extra so on, that's how much there is to do.
These girls, both in my league and others, have given up so much of themselves to make their teams work, it really is amazing to see, and you have to have a great deal of respect for them. And if not, well you probably suck anyway. :p
These woman work full time, have kids, some are single parents, and they do everything in their power to be at practice, and work their butts off when they are there. They spend free time at home or on breaks at work making calls for fundraisers and practice space.
We have a girl on our team who when on call has the coach hold her phone, and when it rings she skates off to the side to help customers.
We had a girl last night who was sick enough that we all told her to go home, so she suppressed her cough and went out and scrimmaged for an hour.
These girls are tough. And I can tell by the work, love and dedication that we are not the only team lucky enough to have people like this. You should all be very proud of yourselves, and what you have accomplished.