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Politics has long been a contested idea. Ever since Plato and Aristotle, we've struggled to give the term a stable meaning. Monarchs insisted it was synonymous with their divine right to rule, and revolutionaries with rebellions against this right. Liberals have long associated it with the domain of the interests, and radicals and conservatives with the realm of the passions. Elected representatives will always be the main agents of change in a liberal democracy, and getting out the vote one of the main ways in which we can effect this change. But it is the work of a mobilized citizenry, of those men and women out of office, that can help us publicize complaints, build new constituencies, even run in the opposition.

Drawing on interviews with skaters on teams from all over the country in the women's flat track roller Derby association (wftda), this article argues that roller Derby can be viewed as a secular alternative to religion for its participants. Following Stolz et al.'s ((Un)Believing in Modern Society: Religion, Spirituality, and Religious‐Secular Competition, Surrey, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2016) argument that social and cultural change has led to a change in the religious 'competition' regime which has resulted in changes to the nature of both intra‐religious competition and religious–secular competition so that religious groups now find themselves competing with secular leisure activities. This article finds support for this theory: that roller Derby functions as a secular competitor to religion in the lives of these skaters in three key ways: (1) roller Derby participants make a significant investment of time, energy, money, and physical well‐being into their sport; (2) roller Derby does, in fact, satisfy most if not all of the individual needs traditionally satisfied by religion as identified by Stolz et al(2016). ((Un)Believing in Modern Society: Religion, Spirituality, and Religious‐Secular Competition, Surrey, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2016); and, (3) participation in roller Derby does conflict with individuals' formal religious involvement.