Charlton Native Erica Vanstone Champions Roller Derby’s Authentic Spirit in New Book

By-Hank Stolz

Photo- Erica Vanstone

WORCESTER, MA– Erica Vanstone from Charlton joins Hank to talk about her adventures in Roller Derby as chronicled in her new book, Don’t Let Them Eat the Baby: Why Roller Derby is the Greatest Sport Never Sold. Vanstone grew up in Charlton but her interest in film took her to NYC and eventually led to her being the executive director of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA)–the governing body for the sport of roller derby.

The book’s title, “Don’t Let Them Eat the Baby,” comes from a roller derby strategy and serves as a metaphor for not allowing others to hold you back or compromise your authentic ideas. Erica tells Hank that roller derby’s authenticity and counter-culture ethos were both its greatest assets and its biggest obstacles to being “sold” to mainstream audiences and corporate media. She talked about a comment she overheard that illustrated how at one point before the success of the WNBA and other women led sports, women’s sports was a hard sell. “I heard a high-level executive from a national sports network who was a woman say to a room full of women, women’s sports are just not exciting enough yet. And so, if there was that kind of belief internally at the networks that women’s sports just weren’t good enough to be broadcast, you can have all the roller derby in the world you want. If no one wants to put it on their broadcast network, they’re not going to do it.”

Erica will be at A Great Notion Books this Saturday. The book will widely available on October 14th.