You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me Loose Wheel: It's all a part of the game, until it's not.

Recently, the New Orleans Saints have been in the news because of the bounty the defensive coach placed on "hitting players so hard that they have to be carted off by EMTS". If you aren't familiar with the scandal, check out what people are talking about here. When I heard about this kind of behavior, I was frankly disgusted with the whole situation. When I think of professional sports, I expect better behavior. Guess my expectations are too high.

I don't know about you guys, but I have never wished to injure anyone on the track; even if I'm completely amped up and feeling seriously aggressive during a game, I still know it's a game, and I want to everyone to be up for a fun after party. Actually, I want everyone to be able to play again the next time I see them. So what happens if the unthinkable happens, and you accidentally hurt someone during game play? Well, I did it, and it absolutely sucked.

Last November, Cape Fear came to practice with my league; I love the Cape Fear ladies, and I've developed friendships with most of them in spite of the fact that I have always wanted to beat them in a derby game! Anyway. I was in a jam against one of my mostest favorite people in the world, Dixie Diesel. Dixie was jamming, and as she was breaking out of the pack, I did a booty swipe across her lap and she went down; my jammer got lead, and I was pleased with my performance. I was pleased, until Dixie didn't get back up.

When Dixie fell, she broke her ankle. The jam stopped, our helpers went over to assist her, and Joshua Boyd ended up carrying her off of the floor. I felt like a monster for hurting her. I kept going over the hit in my mind: Did I do something illegal? The hit didn't seem that drastic! It really took the wind out of my sails for the rest of the scrimmage, and it made me doubt myself as a player.

Two things happened after Dixie got injured; Dixie and several Cape Fear girls contacted me and really assured me that they understood I didn't do anything malicious to cause her injury. In fact, Dixie told me that if I was still mooning about the injury, she would "hit me with a crutch the next time she saw me!" She also told me that her ankle might have already been hurt due to a previous game injury, and that she thought it was a legal hit. The second thing that happened was the scrimmage was video taped, and I finally got to see the actual hit. It was completely legal, and it wasn't even that drastic of an incident. I don't like watching it that much because you can see when Dixie's leg stops supporting her, so that's why I'm not posting it here.

I also drew this for her because she is such a badass.

Seeing the exact accident happened made me feel all kind of relief. I play derby because I love pitting my skills against other players; I don't want to take anyone out of this game for any reason, and I would certainly never try to do that on purpose. Derby is dangerous enough without mixing the mentality of "hurting people" to win a game. I really do NOT understand how anyone who loves the sport he or she plays would take satisfaction in injuring another player on purpose. Maybe it's because I'm not a "professional player", but to be honest, I feel like I'm more professional than anyone who participates in that kind of behavior.