The Gotham Roller Derby family is saddened to announce the passing of Sarah McKemie, known to her friends and fans as Sexy Slaydie, on Wednesday, March 27.
Sexy Slaydie
By Thomas Gerbasi
Talk to anyone who knew Sarah McKemie, and they will tell you that she was always the shining light in the room, the person who could pick up those who were down, bring a smile to the grumpiest New Yorker, and be the first one to shake your hand after a hard-fought game of roller derby.
This, of course, after she dominated the track as Sexy Slaydie, one of the greatest defensive forces to ever do it. But when the final whistle sounded, that was it. She was Sarah again.
“The goal has always been to play the absolute best derby possible,” she told me in 2016 for a story on Culturess.com. “We all love the spirit of competitiveness, but also respect for your fellow skaters and fellow league mates. It’s not win or die.”
In my day job, I cover mixed martial arts and boxing, and often, the question of heart comes up. In my eyes, everyone who steps into the ring or Octagon has heart. I feel the same way about roller derby skaters. But there are those who go above and beyond the call of duty for their sport. Now mind you, unlike prizefighters, derby skaters are purely doing this for the love of the game. There is no paycheck at the end of the season. So remember that when I tell you that before the 2015 WFTDA championship game, McKemie was going to play with her Gotham Girls Roller Derby squad, as expected.
What wasn’t expected was that she did it with a broken leg and a sprained ankle.
“I still had a little bit left,” she told me with a chuckle, knowing that her previous statement got thrown out the window by her willingness to risk further injury for the sake of winning a title and being there for her teammates.
“I didn’t think that I was going to injure myself further,” she said of her decision. “I was taped really well, I was limber, and I did everything I could. The only reason I wouldn’t have played would have been if I thought that my team’s performance as a whole would have suffered.”
Slaydie, who broke her tibia and sprained her ankle on the first jam of the tournament semifinals against Victorian Roller Derby, laced up her skates for the final, and while Rose City emerged victorious against Gotham, it doesn’t matter.
In fact, not a lot about sports matters as Gotham and McKemie’s family and friends cope with the loss of Sarah on March 27 after a courageous battle with cancer. She was only 38, a wife and mother, and when you say that a loss like this is too soon, it’s really too soon in her case.
So when I heard the news, I immediately thought of her son Henry and what he’ll remember of his mom. Luckily, he’s got a legion of skaters that will be more than ready to tell him that she was one of a kind, on and off the track. Maybe it was that Kentucky upbringing that brought that light to an often-dark New York City, but whatever it was, if you met her, talked with her or watched her play, you remembered her.
If memory serves, we spoke for the first time in 2012 as I interviewed her for the GGRD website. We would chat several times over the course of her career in Gotham, either for features or after bouts. At 6-foot-1, she already had an inch on me, and when you add skates, she towered over me, which always amused me, and I’ll never forget my daughter looking up at her like she was a superhero. But Sarah leaned over to her, encouraged her to one day put on the skates, and yeah, she was a superhero.
And while roller derby was never going to pay the bills, she loved it nonetheless, and on the track, it was all business.
“I take sports very seriously,” she told me in 2012. “I usually don’t talk at all when I play, just to keep my focus. Sometimes if I like the person I’ll wink; otherwise, you’re not getting anything back from me.”
Well, you’d probably get a hit that could send you off the track, and it’s why she was a key member not just of the GGRD All-Stars, but of the Brooklyn Bombshells and Team USA. And it’s key to point out that she wasn’t just someone who did this as a lark; she was a real athlete who took this really seriously. That was probably in the blood.
“My mom was the first woman to get an athletic scholarship in Kentucky, and she played basketball and volleyball in college,” McKemie said. “She was also All-World in softball for three years in high school. So my sister and brother and I all played sports since we could walk. She always coached us in basketball and volleyball and softball. We had a special connection to sports because of her and she’s also been very supportive of whatever I decided to do sportswise.”
Basketball was the first love, but when she went to college in Tennessee and saw a derby bout, she took her talent to the track, first with the Nashville Rollergirls.
“I went to the first tryouts in basketball shorts and everyone looked at me like I was crazy,” she said. “It was the end of 2008 and everyone’s wearing fishnets and ripped stockings and tank tops with their bras hanging out, and here I am in a basketball t-shirt and basketball shorts. I think they got a kick out of it, but they found out pretty soon that I was serious.”
In 2010, she moved to the Big Apple, where she kept the skates on and raised the bar for any blockers to come.
“At the end of the day, it’s what can you do with the talent that’s on your team, and how can you work together to beat your opponent with the mental game and the physical game? It’s exhilarating, it’s one of the biggest things in my life, and this is my passion.”
After building a body of work that may never be replicated, Slaydie retired from the sport, became Sarah again, and with her husband Daniel, started a family. She also loved her work in music law with Serling Rooks Hunter McKoy Worob & Averill LLP, and it appeared that a happy ending was being written in Brooklyn, but cancer sadly had other plans.
Sarah’s loss was a devastating blow, but as Henry grows older, he will see how much friends, family and strangers alike loved his mom. And he’ll learn how she fought to the end, as tough in real life as she was on the track, where we already knew that she was the one everyone would want on their side when the chips were down.
Sexy Slaydie was the real deal.
—
The family has requested donations in Slaydie’s honor to the following charities:
The Colorectal Cancer Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering
Her son Henry McKemie’s college fund (CODE: 80L-M86)
