‘Encouraged to be fierce’
Marissa López isn’t just a professor of English and Chicana/o studies – she also competes in roller derby
Gregg Segal
Lacing ’em up: Marissa López discovered roller derby in 2005 and joined the action in 2024, first as a referee and then as a competitor.
| October 6, 2026
Marissa López was pregnant and finishing her dissertation in 2005 when she attended a New York City roller derby match.
“It was like this revelation,” says López, now a UCLA professor of English and Chicana/o studies. “I didn’t think of myself as particularly athletic or coordinated, but I was like, this is my sport!”
Obviously, the timing was wrong for her to strap on some skates. But the allure of the rink didn’t go away. A few years later, López had moved to L.A. for a new job and was raising two young children when she started going to matches of the Derby Dolls, L.A.’s roller derby league, as a fan. Once again, though, she passed on trying it herself.
“I felt like I had missed the window to participate,” she says. “It seemed like a very young person’s game.”
Then one day in 2024, López read a Derby Dolls post on Instagram, looking for referees. By then she was 50 and well established in her career, and her kids were grown. “I thought, I’ve got time on my hands!” she says. She took skating lessons and trained with the league, eventually becoming an Enforcer (referee).
López recalls the excitement of being a part of the action at last: “I was at a scrimmage, Bikini Kill was playing on the stereo, and all these strong, fast, skilled women were zooming around me on the track. There was so much kinetic energy! That’s what I love.”
After an injury earlier this year, López is back on the track.
She also learned that age isn’t the restriction she’d thought it was. She kept moving up in training classes and eventually joined the Fresh Meat team, where she skated until earlier this year, when she broke a few bones while skating.
But she’s rolling on: Now fully healed, López is thrilled to be back circling the track once more. “Derby celebrates and encourages all the things that the rest of the world discourages in women,” she says. “Aggression, competitiveness, team play — just a different kind of woman than is elevated in the rest of the world. I’ve never experienced any other context in which I’ve been encouraged to be fierce.”
This is an excerpt from a UCLA Magazine story. Read the full article here, and read the complete fall 2026 issue here.