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The Jan. 1 move to make Gotham Roller Derby star Vanessa “V-Diva” Sites the new Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Roller Radicals new head coach was months in the making.
It was almost destiny.
Sites is a Pennsylvania native, and a former member of the Coal City Rollers — one of the two teams that combined to form the Roller Radicals — and had been “teasing” Wilkes-Barre/Scranton assistant coach Sandra “Burger” Davison that she wanted to come home and coach the team for the past couple years. Well, after a trial stint with the team last season, Sites now takes over as the head coach full time.
“Finally, she was like, ‘Hey, I want to come home.’ We were like, ‘Oh, OK,’” Davison said of a conversation she had with Stiles last fall. “Last season, when we had her on for that month trial period kind of thing, we were preparing for a tournament and we actually did pretty well at the tournament. We won two out of the three games. The work she brought to us worked for us very well and we were like, ‘Yes, of course. This is what we want. This is what we want to continue in 2017.’”
After a campaign of leeway, that saw Davison moving from assistant coach to “head coach by default” after the Roller Radicals’ old head coach moved away midseason, Sites comes in providing stability and hope.
“This means a whole bunch to us. We’re glad to have her,” Davison said. “We are hoping that what she brings to the table will push us as far as we can possibly go in our upcoming season. We’re really, really looking forward to working with her. The work that we have done with her so far has proven to be very beneficial to us, so we are just super-duper excited this season.”
Playing at the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association Division 1 level with Gotham, which is the top-ranked team in the world, Sites came to the Roller Radicals with a promise of improvement. Currently sitting No. 257 in the WFTDA rankings — out of 320 ranked teams — as a Division 3 league, the Team USA member assured the Roller Radicals a rise up the rankings leading to an eventual breach of Division 2.
Division 2 contains the teams slotted 41-60 in the June WFTDA rankings.
“She made that completely clear from the get-go, whenever she brought it to our attention that she wanted it be our head coach,” Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Roller Radicals league manager Brandy Ralston said. “She told us that, you know, it’d be fun. We’d have a fun season but it’s going to be a lot of work, it’s going to be really hard, and that’s what our girls expect. We believer her. I think we can do it.”
From the time Sites joined on last fall, the veteran’s ability and style has caught the eye of her players. She’s changed the “whole outlook on derby” for the Roller Radicals, according to Davison.
“We are Division 3 and she plays at Division 1, so it’s a whole new box of tools to play with,” Davison said. “She has a very distinct way of teaching; where everybody’s included. She can teach it at every level, from bottom to the top. She knows her stuff.”
The skill Sites brings to the table is what has caught Ralston’s eye the most.
“She plays for different teams, she goes to other teams and teaches them, so she brings a lot of knowledge, a lot of skill,” Ralston said. “Watching her whenever she’s out there, it’s crazy because I don’t know anyone else who can do that. The skill that she brings, and the knowledge, is really what she’s going to bring to the table for us.”
Since Sites plays at the Division 1 level with Gotham, and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton plays at the Division 3 level, the two commitments aren’t expected to interfere. However, if Sites isn’t available at some point, there is a backup plan in place.
“Vanessa is pretty much head of training, if you want to call it that,” Davison said. “She’s the head of training, and when she’s not available it would fall onto myself or (assistant coach) Elyse (Peterman).”
A recruiting boost
With an open house set for 7:45 p.m. Tuesday at Skateaway in Wilkes-Barre, both Davison and Ralston hope the allure of the ability to work with Sites draws in new members.
“There are teams out there in other areas — like in Allentown or in Lehigh (Valley) — that have 40 to 60 members, and they have the same population as the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area,” Ralston said. “For the longest time, we’ve only been able to hold about 20 to 30 girls at a time, so the idea that (Sites) is going to be there, hopefully — what I want to happen is — there’s going to be a bigger draw. It’s not going to make some girls go and practice with other teams, it’s going to keep them and bring them here because we’re only going to move up in the (WFTDA) rankings having her here.”
“We want everybody to come and try,” Davison added. “We want all women, all walks of life to come and try out. Any extra appeal we can bring to the table, we welcome it.”
