Welcome everybody to Midday magazine for this Thursday, August 1st, 2024.
Have your host James J. Mailoff here.
In part two at 430, we're going to speak with our friend Anna Mitchell, Natural Resource
Educator with UW-Madison Extension Wood County.
Right now in studio, some great new friends of ours from Midstate Roller Derby, we have
Mia Petita in with us, Big Shrimp, and good to see you again, Mia.
Good to see you, James.
It's a wonderful having us.
Thanks a lot for being here.
Thank you very much for the time.
I appreciate you.
And we want to welcome to our studio, Megan McDonald, Megan, nice to have you with us.
Good morning.
Megan, you don't have a nickname yet.
We've got to get you a nickname.
Oh, I have a Derby name.
Oh, you've got a Derby name.
Awesome, awesome.
I've had a Derby name for 13, 14 years.
I would imagine, yeah.
I am Angela Smash's.
Oh my God, that's good.
Oh, that's good.
Oh, I love that name.
Oh, that's good.
More about that and your history in a little bit.
And thank you again for being here, Megan.
I've heard a lot about you to appreciate the time.
I appreciate not only your guys this time, but what Midstate Roller Derby is doing.
Certainly, you know, giving an avenue for people is certainly anybody to be able to do these
things and women and eight of all different ages to be able to be a part of something.
We don't have enough opportunities for women like that.
That is amazing.
The support of the rainbow that comes with this is so certainly important and vital in
this day and age.
But there is also just the fun and entertainment value that this is and giving an audience
in a great show.
I've talked about this with a lot of listeners since the last time Midstate joined us and
talking about roller derby and spreading the sport.
And one of the things that I've kind of talked to people about as well, there's certain
sports you don't get right away, but you got to watch and take into really, really understand
that much better.
I come from a hockey family and my dad and I have spent our whole lives trying to spread
hockey and everything and hockey is incredibly similar to this.
I can explain to you the rules of hockey, but you're not going to get it until you really
watch hockey.
And so that's why we encourage you to attend these roller derby events, take them in as
much as you can and spread the word of what our friends at Midstate Roller Derby are doing.
And that's where I'd like to start if you don't mind, ladies, with what Midstate Roller
Derby is.
So Mia, I ask you a big question like that.
No, no tough questions here today or anything.
Just for you.
Yeah, nothing difficult.
Nothing difficult.
I need some up derby.
Right.
And you have five seconds.
No, no.
But no, but no, let us see.
Somebody asked you, you're trying to sell the sport.
You're trying to let people know about these matches coming up.
How do you explain it to them?
So I explain it in terms of how many people we have on the track and kind of what the goal
is.
So each team has five players on the track.
Four of them are blockers.
One of them is a jammer.
And the goal is for your jammer to pass the opposing blockers and score points by going
around the track.
There's more nuances to it and things like that.
But that's the gist of it.
Yeah, that's the general way that I explained it.
Well, and I think it's a great explanation.
I think it really is because even those nuanced details that you're talking about, I think
people will pick them up more and more as you take in these games and watch them, which
we encourage you to do.
We're going to tell you more about that in a moment.
I do want to note that Midstate Roller Derby is a Stevens Point based 501C nonprofit organization.
The league was founded back in 2010, been doing this a while, and by dedicated skaters
that continue to be volunteer run and operated, which is a, as a side note, more and later,
we are always looking for volunteers and people that want to be a part of Midstate Roller
Derby.
So we'll talk about that more in a little bit, but I want to go from asking me and putting
her on the spot.
I mean, asking her a question about like that to you, Megan, because I'd like to know
what Midstate Roller Derby means to you.
You've been doing this for quite some time.
If you wouldn't mind giving us a little bit of your background with Midstate Roller Derby
along with what it means to you.
Sure.
I was actually one of the founding members in 2010.
You know, I answered an ad in the newspaper, that's how long ago it was, and have been
skating ever since.
I've held multiple positions on the board of directors, have been a skating member.
The only break I took was during COVID.
And then I came back, and I can't believe that I did, actually, I'm currently the oldest
member on the team.
And yeah, Derby, I'm going to try to knock it emotional about it.
Derby for me is amazing.
It is empowering, it is so much fun.
It is my social outlet.
I worked in a pretty physical job during the big chunk of the time that I was skating
Derby in corrections.
And so Derby was really my outlet.
I could go and skate fast and hit hard, and you know, my friends loved it, and I loved
them.
And it was just, it was a really healthy outlet for a stressful job.
Now that I don't do that job anymore, I still love it.
It's still an amazing outlet.
We travel.
We have fun.
I mean, we're a group of girls that get together and do a whole lot of stuff together.
We do community events, we volunteer all over the place, but we also play Derby, you
know?
Derby is not everything, but it's a huge part of why we all get together.
Yeah.
I cannot thank you enough for that answer.
Thank you, me.
And thank you for the work that you and others put into this organization to get it to this
point.
I got to ask, what does it feel like to be at this point in seeing the growth of the
sport, the younger people like me and stuff getting involved in falling in love with it
like you did, kind of falling into it in some ways too.
And just to see that we're on the upswing of this, we're on the right end of it and everything.
It's got to feel pretty amazing.
It is.
We have some newer skaters that are really just taken the bull by the horns and jumping
in and are committed for all the right reasons.
And that is so, it's so heartwarming to know that all of the blood sweat in so many
tears starting a nonprofit from scratch is sort of coming to fruition and that it hasn't
died out.
Lots of leagues don't make it this long.
So the fact that we're still going strong 14 years later tells me that we're doing something
right.
Well said.
Yeah.
When it comes to encouraging people to be a part of the sport, whether it is volunteering
and helping out with things or just getting in there, putting on some skates and getting
out there, what do you say to people to cut?
Not so much to encourage them, but to let them know, hey, this could be a great avenue
for you.
This might be an outlet for you.
Oh, we have volunteers that do so many different things that are not skaters, right?
It's skating is not for everybody and we recognize that.
But there are so many other things that we need.
We have people that do marketing and promotional stuff.
We have people who do organizational stuff, statistics, you know, I just mentioned the
other day that like on the nerd van diagram, there are some things that overlap pretty well.
So math people, people who are in physics, people like there are so many different other
things that translate to Derby super well.
And it's just, you know, there's a lot of us that are introverted except when we're
at Derby.
Right.
Right.
It's fun because you're in like this safe space that you can sort of stretch your wings
a little bit and then go back to your nerdy little life like me.
I think that you really hit a couple of, I know that you hit on a couple of people out
there that heard that and related to a couple of things you said there.
For one, I know that there are so many, and specifically women out there looking for
avenues like this that have not had them in years past and quite frankly our society
hasn't done enough to make give opportunities like this or support opportunities like this.
So that alone is speaking to a number of people out there, I would imagine.
And I'm so glad you brought up the physics and the science and some of that behind roller
Derby.
I know it's something I thought is really cool about the sport, but I learned it from
my dad.
My dad, I mentioned as a former athlete, but that's not why I got him in the roller derby.
He's also a human calculator.
My dad's brain is just a human calculator and loves that part of the match, that part
of the game and stuff so much.
So it's a great note by that, that I wouldn't have thought of that.
I'm glad you brought that up.
It's a fun sport.
Mia, when you're celebrating the sport, when you're telling people you're talking to friends
or anything and encouraging them to maybe be a part of things, how do you word that?
How do you pitch this to people, if you will?
I pitch the community as well.
I pitch that like, you know, you know, it is such a welcoming space and it's so awesome
to meet different people and you don't just meet people from your team.
You meet people from all over, like all of the teams that you play.
Most Derby people that you meet, like at the end of the day, after the bouts where we
hang out, we have a great time, we chit-chat.
Up in our last game in Kiwena, I was ended up like dancing all night with the other team
and it was a great time.
The camaraderie that exists with this is so important to it and everything.
I think a lot of us that have done athletics and everything, you're speaking our language.
I talk to a lot of former athletes, I live with a former, you know, see one every day
with my father and some of these and it doesn't matter if it's from a Hall of Fame pro-level
or if it is that these kind of levels or anything, you talk to people and the thing they
miss the most about the game is not winning or losing or any of that, it's the camaraderie.
It's the teammates, it's the being around the people, your fellow teammates and everything.
And for many people out there, you might think that you have aged out of certain things
or whatever.
Roller Derby is here for you.
There is no age limit on Roller Derby.
So young, old, if you're in between, you're all are welcome and I mean that completely,
not just by age but by anything else under the gamut.
You are welcome.
This is such a fun thing to be able to say about Roller Derby and I appreciate both of
you noting how much that mid-state does in the communities and gives back and everything.
It's another fun but really cool part of what you guys do.
I don't believe that anybody expects that but that you do it is above and beyond and
it's greatly appreciated by our communities, not just here but in point and all around
Central Wisconsin.
Thank you.
Roller, mid-state Roller Derby is thrilled to announce an action-packed Roller Derby
double header coming up this Saturday, August 3rd.
Let's talk about this.
I can't imagine how excited you guys are to be able to get on the rink and get going
and everything.
This is going to be a fun one.
This is going to take place at KB Willett Ice Arena in Steven's point.
When it comes to a double header, is this any different than kind of other sports with
double headers?
I see that Game 1 begins at 4, doors are open at 4 and the first whistle below 430.
This event feature intense competition fierce athleticism.
We can kind of gauge some of that but as far as a double header, how you approach a double
header?
Do you save a little energy for that game too?
Do you kind of pace yourselves any differently in Game 1 than Game 2?
Mia, do you approach this any differently than you would a regular match?
I have not had the pleasure of playing a double header before.
This game on August 3rd that we're having is actually going to be the first game is
our team against CDRD which is Chipotle Roller Derby but then the second game is Mississippi
Valley.
We made him versus Lance Marquette Roller Derby.
Marquette Roller Derby.
We're not playing the second game but I imagine it gets exhausting watching the previous
skaters who've been in it in a long time doing two games in a day is wild.
They're just machines out there.
All of you guys are.
All of your machines out there.
It's intense and it's fun watching this action.
It's also, I think that's also noteworthy to do sports fans out there.
It's non-stop action on there.
For anybody that is very interested by sports like that where it's just constant go, go,
go.
Man, Roller Derby is for you.
You're going to enjoy this.
For Megan as far as getting ready for a match like this and this is more what I wanted
to ask is this is the last match of the season, correct?
This is your last home match of the season.
Is your approach any different to this one than it would be to another match and normal
match during the regular season?
I imagine you want to leave it all out there.
You want to get the home crowd a good time.
Absolutely.
Yes.
I haven't skated actually for about six weeks because I had some surgery.
I'm coming back just in time for this last bout because there's no way I'm going to miss
it.
That's just not going to happen.
This is our last home bout and when you get to be my age, we have another skater on
the team who is, she fosters from another team and she's in my age bracket ish.
But we always talk about how the number of games we have to play is sort of finite physically.
We appreciate every single game that we play because we don't know how many more games
we have, right?
It's a home bout.
It's super stoked.
I think our attendance has increased over the course of the summer.
We had amazing attendance at the last bout.
We expect that for this bout as well.
I'm stoked.
I am.
I am all in.
We're playing a team that we play and have played over the last decade repeatedly.
Chippewa Valley roller derby is amazing.
They're one of our like sister teams or sibling teams.
They're fantastic.
The bout is going to be more of a B level bout for us, which means that we get to put a lot
of our newer skaters out on the track and let them have fun.
Yeah, give them some experience and everything in real time.
Yep.
And then the second bout that we're not skating in, we will be dispersed through the crowd,
answering questions, talking to people about derby, whatever, explaining the game, doing
all those things that we wouldn't normally have the opportunity if we were going to skate
both bouts back to back.
Yeah.
In that second game, I don't know, I don't mean to put you on the spot and ask for a preview
of the two teams, but from what I've been able to see, two very good teams going at it
with Mississippi Valley, Mayhem and Marquette Roller derby.
Yep.
We have played both of those teams in the past.
Great group of skaters, both leagues.
It will be fun.
It's going to be fun to watch.
I will say I am kind of excited that we don't skate a second bout because I get to actually
sit and watch and like scream and cheer and yeah, it's so much fun.
We're going to have concessions down there, merchandise, activities for kids.
This is a true family event.
Bring one.
Everybody come on down and that's also goes for you and the guys.
You and the guys are looking for something fun to do.
Come on down and enjoy the event.
You and the kids are looking for something fun to do.
You just you come on down and enjoy yourself.
There's something for everybody and again, great concessions, great merchandise, get some
of this merch everybody so that people around town and everybody are going to see you in
the mid-state gear and ask you what that, what is that, oh, it's mid-state and you can
explain what it is and everything and help us spread the sport.
Be a part of this double header again coming up this Saturday, August 3rd, things the
doors open at four over at the wonderful KV Will at Ice Arena and Steven's point of shout
out to them hosting this event.
Really do appreciate them doing that.
One of the things the three of us have been talking about is kind of getting people
involved in roller derby and spreading the word about this.
I think a great next step of that is offering classes and that's something you guys have taken
the initiative of and you have a roller derby 101 new skater class starting in September.
Can we talk about this and let people know about this meal?
Yeah, so I'm super excited for this.
Basically, it's going to be an introduction to skating and roller derby class for people.
It's going to be a five week class Sunday and Tuesday nights at Melody Gardens in Marshfield.
It's going to be a really great opportunity to learn about the sport and just to learn how
to skate in general.
If you've been off skates for a while or you haven't really skated, this is a great opportunity
to learn and veteran skaters will be there with you, walking you through things and helping
you.
She is really good, Megan.
Oh, I know.
You guys don't really need me.
I'll just push the buttons over.
You're really well done.
That's what nicely done, Mia.
It's a five week course.
It's not even that long of a program or anything.
Not a huge time commitment.
It doesn't sound like the classes themselves are that long.
That's nice too.
Then we're asking people to, and this is for really any continuing education class that
anybody would offer, you know, you only have so much time and trying to fit these things
in.
It's really smart the way you guys have done this and compacted this.
I'm also curious if somebody's out there listening and they're hearing this and they're
intrigued.
Well, what if I haven't skated in years?
What if it's been a while since I've been out there?
What if I'm worried if I'm not in a good enough shape?
Some of these questions you might get, how would you answer those?
Mia, Megan, either one of you.
Well, from personal standpoint, prior to skating, I did not skate.
I was not good at skating.
The first learned to skate class, I went to, I was hugging the wall for months, okay?
She's not exaggerating.
I am not exaggerating.
Like, I would crawl along the wall on the skate.
So if, you know, just do it.
Your only way to get better is to practice and we're giving you space and time to practice.
So please come.
It's fun, right?
We're only on this rock for so long and we only have so many opportunities to do fun,
different things.
This is one of them.
It's, I think, affordable.
It's not a gigantic time commitment.
And if nothing else, it gives you the opportunity to just try something different.
It's, again, it's not about age.
It's not about being fit.
That comes with practice.
So if you haven't been super active, you haven't been on skates, or you've been super
active, but in different sports, Derby won't necessarily be automatically easy, right?
It's a whole different set of skills.
It can be kind of humbling for people who are super athletic and other things.
And then they come to Derby and they realize, oh, this is different.
But it's amazing.
It's super fun.
We're very encouraging and supportive.
Melody Gardens is amazing.
They're food.
It's a family run business.
They're incredible.
Yeah, I can't say enough about our Learn to Skate class.
There is no downside effect to this.
There is no downside to this.
You go.
But boy, that's a good sore.
That's a good sore.
That's a good workout out there.
And there's another part of this, too, where so many people are taking the initiative of
their health, their mental health, their body health, and wanting to get into shape and
wanting to exercise in some of these things.
And one of the things that I've noted from roller derby and other sports like this is,
it's a great exercise.
It's a great, not only are you going to have fun and get a little bit of a good,
a little bit of that competitiveness out of your system and some of that.
But you are also going to be doing this with friends, people that are going to become
like family to you, while also getting that exercise in, keeping yourself in good shape
and everything.
All about the endorphins.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's so many endorphins.
So much fun.
With these classes, not only are they quick, there are Sundays, five to seven, Tuesday,
six, thirty, eight, thirty.
But again, as Megan mentioned, they're very affordable.
Twenty dollars.
You can save your spot.
You pay 25 the day of and you will also know that you are putting into mid-state and
what they're doing for our communities.
It's really a full circle way of putting back into your community because that's what
mid-state roller derby does.
So that money is invested into our community, invested in the mid-state roller derby and
doing the great work that they're doing over there and having the fun that they are
and giving us the entertainment that you guys do.
And don't worry about not having gear.
We have a loner gear.
You just let us know ahead of time.
Just bring yourself.
Yeah.
And remember that all comers are welcome.
No experience.
Prior experience needed.
You're going to learn a lot of things with this class and you know, get a little bit
more basic skating skills and learn more about roller derby itself and teamwork and sportsmanship
and some of the most fun parts of this are that.
So you're going to really be able to enjoy that.
For more information and to register for new skater class, you can go to their registration
page at join at mid-state.org that's join at mid-stater.org and find out more at mid-state
roller derby.org, mid-state roller derby.org.
Be sure to like their social media pages as well and keep up the day and all the great
things they are doing.
And let's make sure that they have a sell-out crowd, have a full crowd that's shown when
home field advantage is everybody and support our mid-state roller derby.
Game one of the double header coming up this Saturday, August 3rd, doors open at four
over at KB Willett, Icerina, be sure to be there, get your gear and some concessions, get
a good seat and take in a great show because not only do we have game one, mid-state roller derby
versus Chippewa Valley, roller derby, but game two will feature Mississippi Valley mayhem
versus the Marquette roller derby.
Megan Mia, have a great time this weekend and enjoy yourselves.
We'll see you down there.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you. We really appreciate the time.
Yeah, thank you for having us.
This is becoming one of my favorite interviews.
You guys are coming back.
We'll bring you back real soon, okay?
Thank you for the time.
Thank you.
Well, at more mids, midday magazine coming up for you right here at WFHR, locally grown radio.
