by Blake Herzog
Macy Beebe, aka Thrasher #20 from Casa Grande Roller Derby, said she earned her nickname when she was a toddler: “When I was about 2 years old my parents would call me a little thrasher, and they stuck the sticker from Thrasher Magazine (a skateboarding publication) on my door. I was just a little bull in a china shop and broke a lot of stuff. So then when I started derby, I was like, that just makes sense.”
Now 23, Macy has been thrashing her way through the world of roller derby since she was 10, jamming and blocking on the rink and making friends and finding supporters everywhere else.
The sport certainly loves her back, as she was named Roller Derby Skater of the Year in 2024 by the USA Roller Sports Board of Directors “in recognition of your extraordinary talent and contributions to the sport.” This organization is the official governing body for all sports on roller skates, including roller derby, speed skating, figure skating and more.
“I’m too humbled to take full credit and say that’s just because of my skating skill,” she said. “I think a lot of it has to do with my effort that I put into helping grow the derby community and everything as well. I went to college and got my bachelor’s in exercise science with an emphasis in sports performance. And I used that to help just on and off skates, to try to grow the sport. And I run clinics and try to get more people involved in any way possible because I’m obsessed with the sport.”
Beebe dressed as a roller derby player for Halloween as a girl growing up in Tempe and started playing in youth leagues, her parents driving her up to 11 hours one way to high-level California youth leagues after the one in Phoenix disbanded.
After she aged out of them, she started playing in the Casa Grande league, among others, while attending Grand Canyon University. Besides starring on Casa Grande’s travel team, the Big House Bombers, she’s traveled nationally to lead clinics and internationally with Team USA in the World Skate Games, in Barcelona in 2019 and Italy in 2024, where she was one of the team’s captains as it brought home the gold.
She launched her online
personal training business at
www.trainingbythrasher.com, last spring, one of two she knows of that cater to the roller derby community. She said it has “skyrocketed” from the start: “For it being for less than a year, I’ve at least had 20 clients consistently, and it’s all remote and it’s my first year doing it. And so I am honestly extremely happy with how everything has gone with the business.”
Somehow she managed her travel-heavy roller derby existence with a roller-coaster lifestyle last year, moving to the UK to live with and marry her boyfriend on an Air Force base before they were transferred to another base in South Carolina after six months.
She’s committed to playing in the Casa Grande Roller Derby as often as possible. “I’m planning on it for sure. I absolutely love playing with them. They’re like family and it felt so good this weekend to get to play on the track with them again,” she said in November after the league hosted its first-ever tournament sanctioned by the Women’s Fast Track Derby Association (WFTDA).
The Casa Grande league was formed in 2017 and plays at 798 N. Picacho St. To learn more visit the Casa Grande Roller Derby Facebook page.
