Lansing’s own: Get to know Lansing Roller Derby
Lansing Roller Derby has been part of the community since 2010. If you were unaware of local roller derby, I won’t tell anyone as long as you read this article and educate yourself.
LRD traces …
Lansing Roller Derby has been part of the community since 2010. If you were unaware of local roller derby, I won’t tell anyone as long as you read this article and educate yourself.
LRD traces its roots to East Lansing Roller Derby, which formed in 2010 and grew steadily through the early part of the decade before undergoing a series of name, structure, and leadership changes.
“A few of the core people behind it remained incredibly consistent,” said Ali Jahr, president of Lansing Roller Derby and one of the league’s longtime organizers. “That continuity matters. We’ve spent years building institutional knowledge around what it means to have a successful roller derby league.”
In 2021, a consolidation brought together the remnants of multiple local derby organizations into a single unified league under the Lansing Roller Derby name. The result is a skater-run 501(c) (3) nonprofit that operates adult roller derby programs, a junior program for youths aged 7 to 17, recreational training opportunities and a full tournament operation. The league is run almost entirely by volunteers.
The teams and the skaters
On the competitive side, LRD fields travel teams at the A, B and C levels. On the home-team side, four squads compete throughout the season: the Mitten Mavens, the Broadbarians, the Derby Vixens and the Capital Corruption.
Photo gallery: April 25 bout with Lansing Roller Derby v Ann Arbor Roller Derby
Some of the best teams are in Lansing this week
The junior program, Lansing Junior Roller Derby, accepts athletes as young as 7 years old. The emphasis is on “athletic development, confidence, teamwork, leadership, and personal growth,” Jahr said. Scholarship opportunities and loaner gear are available to reduce financial barriers to participation.
LRD recently hosted Skate Wars 2025, a multi-league all-star competition, at the Lansing Center. This event helped establish the relationships and infrastructure that made hosting the WFTDA playoffs possible this year. The leap from Skate Wars to a national playoff event in roughly a year speaks to how much the organization has progressed.
“Hosting a WFTDA playoff event,” Jahr said, “feels like years of behind-the-scenes work finally materializing into something visible.”
The bigger picture
To get involved with roller derby, you never even have to touch a roller skate. LRD’s ecosystem includes referees, non-skating officials, photographers, announcers, livestream producers, medics, event volunteers and community sponsors.
“Roller derby really functions as this intersection of athletics, leadership development, event production, and community organizing all rolled into one extremely chaotic but very rewarding package,” Jahr said. “There’s truly space for almost anyone to get involved.”
That openness is central to the league’s identity.
“Worst case scenario, you spend a couple hours watching people on roller skates hit each other very professionally,” Jahr said. “Best case scenario, you discover your new favorite sport and accidentally become emotionally invested in teams from cities you’ve never been to.”
Let me interject here for a moment
This is unprofessional of me (editor’s note: it’s totally cool) but for those on the fence about getting involved with roller derby, I must share the experiences my wife and I have had. Thanks to the skills we developed while running a large roller derby tournament in Oregon (The Big O), we founded the wildly successful Olive Burger Festival in Lansing. And, we’re just one example of skaters building careers around the skills they learned in the sport.
Adult friendships are hard to come by and roller derby helps you find people who are open-minded and fun-loving. The sport helped me come out of my shell, a difficult task for someone diagnosed with social anxiety. I also appreciated how adept the community is at sniffing out ne’er-do-wells who may be there for the wrong reasons.
TL;DR: Give roller derby a shot in some capacity.
How to get involved
Anyone interested in skating, officiating, volunteering, or sponsoring can start at www.lansingrollerderby.com/joinlrd or reach out at join@lansingrollerderby.com. LRD is currently running a beginner training program. No prior skating experience required.
