Arkansas Democrat Gazette piece

I have been sick since Friday. Didn't even know I was in today's paper. Oops.
http://www.nwarktimes.com/adg/Northwest_Profiles/256054/



THE OTHER EIGHT : Mother, therapist is also a Killbilly
BY BOBBY AMPEZZAN
Posted on Sunday, March 29, 2009
Editor's note:The Other Eight is a look at how people spend the remainder of their day, when they're not sleeping or working.
SPRINGDALE - Jessica Kitchens is a licensed therapist and young mother of three. In her spare time, she participates in roller derby. It's so out of character.
The black-lit roller rink that smells of feet? "You get used to it." The pink tape wrapped around her finger. "It's sticking out - that joint. I probably need to [see the doctor]."
Just an hour before a regular practice of the Arkansas Killbillies last month, Kitchens was home cuddling with her children over an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. "I have seen them all. Every episode."
The family just had a homecooked chicken dinner prepared by her husband from a recipe he got from Sunday School at Shiloh Community Church.
At Roller City, Kitchens arrives as her skating persona, "Blazen Glory," in a tight T-shirt and short shorts, ripped pantyhose and kneepads. By Killbilly standards, Kitchens is a schoolmarm.
"I try to remain demure and not stick out. Some girls come in fishnets ... panties over their fishnets," she says.
A bout features five skaters on each side who work together to propel their team's "jammer" forward while keeping the other team's jammer at bay. The jammers are the only offense on the track. They score points by passing the competition, and they do it in two-minute runs. There are lots of spills, but grabbing a jammer or striking them with a knee, elbow or hand is illegal.
Kitchens is a Killbilly jammer, which puts her in select company on the track. That she exhibits nary a single tattoo puts her in the minority in the locker room.
Roller derby began as longdistance races, competitions of steady skating over several hours. As the sport gained traction, promoters saw that interest increased as more women knocked each other around to get ahead, and aggressive behavior replaced speed and stamina.
At its height in the 1970s, it was a traveling show not unlike professional wrestling, but since its grass-roots revival at the turn of this century the sport has become more sporting, less spectacular, though ruefully campy. The teams have names like "Brewcity Bruisers" and "Girls Gone Derby." They dress to be partly pretty (as in makeup) but dangerous (black makeup). Many dress with an eye toward vintage.
In her first Killbillies bout last year against the Alamo City Rollergirls, Kitchens scored 43 of the team's 130 points.
The women of roller derby are proud to recite their professions - massage therapist, Head Start teacher, pharmacist - in light of their alter egos, and Kitchens is no different. She's a children's psychotherapist.
The kids she sees at Vista Health Systems are "the emergencies" - those who are suicidal, homicidal, the most violent - and among other things she impresses upon them the importance of exploring their coping steps. "We talk about what feelings they're trying to avoid versus what feelings they're having." Many of her clients hurt themselves because they're so tightly wound.
She understands all this, but Kitchens didn't join the Killbillies because she's an adult version of her clients. A fellow John Brown University graduate student suggested she try it, and she did, seeing roller derby as a way to get back into shape after having her third son.
A child of the late 1980s and the 1990s, Kitchens had only a vague knowledge of the sport. "The picture that popped into my head was of women skating around elbowing [each other]. I knew they knocked each other around, but I didn't know what the rules were," perhaps because the spectacle she saw on television was notoriously lawless.
Today's play is anything but unruly, Kitchens says. The newly formed Women's Flattrack Derby Association is lobbying for the sport's legitimacy. The sport has earned coverage on ESPN and this year seeks to hire its first paid staff of two.
All of this suits Kitchens. She is, despite her sport, a good Christian and a gentle woman. "I love my family, but I need some time to myself, and I always wanted something athletic," she says. "This killed two birds with one stone." Well, mostly gentle.