Pivots: roller derby's final positional enigma. If you're gonna sit in the crowd and try to impress your "friends" with your derby knowledge, you'd best know about them. After all, they look like blockers, often they hit like the blockers, yet they wear a helmet panty like a jammer.
(They also often scream at their teammates like the coach. What can I say? It's a busy (read: confusing) position.)
So what do pivots actually do? Simply, pivots are the ones in charge. (Or with a degree of "in charge-edness." See the previous paragraph's "coach" comment.) Dictating the jam's pace, deciding what type of defense will be used, and getting to wear a racing stripe while doing it!
The pivot's primary task is to be her team's "biggest" blocker. "Biggest" here pertaining more to the size and breath of her defensive capabilities, and less to her actual physicality. Just ask the Tampa Bay Derby Darlins' Sasha Haughtbich. Who's made the transition from the decidedly non-defensive position of jammer to the solely defensively-minded pivot in less time than it took me to compose this sentence!
Granted, one shouldn't overlook how size can factor into the pivot's equation. Looking scary and intimidating certainly helps, and can hardly hinder one's success. Just refer to any of my numerous paragraphs describing the Tallahassee RollerGirls' La Voodoo.
Blocking prowess is one thing, but it's usually pack control that wins bouts. A fact supported by Cincinnati and Dallas decisive wins at last year's (2010) Franky Panky tournament. From the (much maligned) stroller derby style of play coming out of the West to killing off penalties by speeding up the pack, it's the strategies that are important. And the pivots are the ones tasked with communicating and executing these plans.
Finally, and most importantly for the crowd, the pivot gets to wear the fancy racing stripe panty. (Perhaps it's due to all the pivot's aforementioned responsibilities, or perhaps it's because everyone knows just what monstrous deeds they're capable of on the track.) Said panty isn't just for aesthetic bragging rights though, it also marks the pivot as the skater eligible for roller derby's grandest play: the star pass.
The star pass is grand primarily because there's not many plays in sports-dom that can combine both the desperation of a Hail Mary pass with top-dogging's innate egotism. Additionally, it's one of the few plays in roller derby that new fans can easily recognize without the need of an interpreter.
After all, what do you do when your (otherwise) excellent jammer catches one too many shots during the course of a jam, and blood starts seeping out of the cracks slowly spiderwebbing in the glazed-over aquariums she calls "eyes?" You have that jammer take the target (i.e. jammer panty) off her head and give it to someone less likely to suffer a concussion! Thus, the star pass' hail-mary aspect.
The top-dogging comes from when your team's so far in the lead that scoring becomes an afterthought. At which point you pass the star panty off as a subtle dis. A way of saying, "Hey, we know you're losing, so let's even the playing field a little."
Which, one conjectures, is how pivots earned their racing stripes. Running the pack, both internally and externally, while sporting the option to run the offense too!
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