Gäste-Ecke » five-time world champion Gotham from NYC,

When Kwynn Perry landed in Los Angeles a decade ago to start a masters program at USCs film school, she was itching for more than just a directors chair. What she was craving more than anything, it turns out, was an extra.As in extracurricular.When I got to grad school I knew I really missed playing, Perry said. I wasnt sure exactly what I wanted, but I looked around L.A. for sports to get back into.Her search started with the sports with which she was familiar. There was soccer, which she enjoyed as a kid playing goalkeeper. And basketball, her familys sport. And volleyball, which she played at the club level at Vanderbilt.But it was a different sport that caught her eye.It wasnt until I started roller derby that I knew what I had been missing, she said. And what it was I needed.One of the things she missed, she said, was the thrill of competition. Roller skating just might have been in her genes, too.My mother always tells stories about skating with me until she was nine months pregnant, Perry said. And of us skating in crowded roller rinks together when I was a toddler.After seeing her first derby game in Ventura, California, Perry joined a local outfit called the L.A. Derby Dolls. Perry said that she was drawn to the speed and danger she perceived in LADDs style, played on a tilted surface called a banked track.Banked-track roller derby called up my inner thrill-seeker, Perry said, adding that roller derby got her reacquainted with the camaraderie of being part of a close-knit team that she cherished in high school.Seven years on, Perry is a 36-year-old Ph.D. candidate and married mother of a kindergartner. She has switched to flat-track derby and plays for the Angel City Derby Girls.She is recognized as one of the best defensive players on one of flat-tracks best teams.This weekend, the skater who plays under the name Hunnie Brasco will try to help Angel City, ranked fifth in the world, advance to the Womens Flat Track Derby Association championship when it plays in the Division 1 playoffs in Vancouver, British Columbia. As the No. 2 seed in the WFTDAs third of four playoff tournaments, Perry and her teammates need to win their first two games to book a ticket to Champs, which takes place in Portland, Oregon, Nov. 4-6.Perrys switch from LADD to Angel City had less to do with playing on a different surface than what she calls her need for more personal athletic challenges. She also wanted to play a wider variety of teams across the world, something offered by the WFTDAs several hundred leagues, spanning Seattle to Sydney, Australia.The opportunity to travel across the country and really bond and get to know your team intimately was very part and parcel with what I wanted out of a sport, she said.After Perrys switch in 2014, Angel City crept up the rankings. Now Angel City is a formidable rival to other world-class roller derby teams such as reigning world champion Rose City of Portland, five-time world champion Gotham from NYC, and perennial powerhouse Texas based in Austin.Angel City has made a name for itself with its top-notch athleticism.We have athletes from a diverse set of backgrounds -- everything from hockey to gymnastics, CrossFitters too, Perry said. I love [derby] players who have played other sports, and watch other sports, because you can always learn from other disciplines.Known informally as the Sequoias, many of Angel Citys key players, including Tui Lyon and Rachel Johnston, are 5 feet 10 or taller. Perry, known for her hard hits (and sense of humor), is 5-11.Hunnie is cripplingly funny. She brings a kind of levity every team needs, Johnston said. Her mile-long legs carry her at terrifying speeds -- shes a jammers worst nightmare.Lyon, a key acquisition from No. 2-ranked Victoria (Australia), says Perrys athleticism matches her cool head and competitive temperament.She hits walls with such incredible force and tenacity, Lyon said. Shes like a Tasmanian devil.As important as the friendship and the competition, Perry says her league is extremely supportive of her as a mother.I feel very fortunate at ACDG that I have support from my league. For some leagues it might be a contentious point, Perry said, noting the time commitment and fitness level demanded of derby athletes. We have eight mothers on our all-star team alone.My son always wants to go to practice with me, because its just like a big gymnasium for him.But thats not all that is good about Angel City, and the league she lives to compete for.Our team is also very ethnically diverse, and that for me is wonderful, Perry said. Its not something that I can put into words, but playing here just feels so welcoming. Cheap Hydro Flask Sale . Galatasaray said in a statement on its website Monday that Mancini signed a three-year contract and will be paid 3.5 million euros for the upcoming season, with his salary upped to 4. Cheap Hydro Flask For Sale . Kiriasis and brakeman Franziska Fritz finished two runs in one minute 55.41 seconds -- a mere 0.01 seconds ahead of Meyers and Lolo Jones, who likely bolstered her Olympic hopes by helping give USA-1 a huge push in the second heat. http://www.discounthydroflaskcheap.com/ . Hargreaves began his career in 2008 with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and has played with the Edmonton Eskimos and last season with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Hydro Flask Clearance . PETERSBURG, Fla. Hydro Flask Sale . The Montreal Canadiens announced on Friday that the veteran forward will return to the teams line-up on Saturday night when the Habs visit the Nashville Predators. NEW ORLEANS -- Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Karl Benson wont rule out Big 12 expansion plans affecting his own conference.Still, Benson called the Sun Belts planned membership perfect in terms of geography, and he stressed that he envisions a period of stability in which member institutions will enjoy budding regional rivalries and see their football programs prosper.I truly hope that we can focus on 2016, what we know, what we can control, what we can achieve -- and not get bogged down in speculation and rumors about conference membership, Benson said Monday in his state-of-the-Sun Belt address at the conferences annual preseason football media day. Obviously, if the Big 12 or SEC or ACC made that phone call to a Sun Belt president or chancellor, he or she would be foolish not to have that discussion.However, Ive said more than once that I will know that the Sun Belt has reached a level of sustainability and stability when a phone call comes from the president or chancellor of one of the Sun Belts peer conferences to a Sun Belt president or chancellor, and the answer will be, Thank you very much, but my university is very happy where we are. Thats exactly where I believe the Sun Belt is today.Football-only members Idaho and New Mexico State are leaving the Sun Belt after 2017. Coastal Carolina, now in transition from the NCAAs Football Championship Subdivision to the Football Bowl Subdivision, becomes a full football member in 2018. At that point, the Sun Belt will have 10 teams in seven Southern states: Alabama (South Alabama and Troy), Arkansas (Arkansas State), Georgia (Georgia Southern and Georgia State), Louisiana (Louisiana-Lafayette and Louisiana-Monroe), North Carolina (Appalachian State), South Carolina (Coastal Carolina) and Texas (Texas State).All you have to do is look at the map, Benson said. Its perfect, it works and we believe in long run it will allow the Sun Belt to grow and thrive and prosper.Stability is something the Sun Belt, now entering its 16th season as a Division I FBS conference, hasnt had in a while. Five teams -- North Texas, Middle Tennessee, Florida International, Florida Atlantic and Western Kentucky -- have left the Sun Belt since 2013. Since then, Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, Georgia State have joined, while longtime member South Alabama moved up to FBS in football and Coastal Carolina joined with its football upgrade now in progress.But Benson hopes the Sun Belt will begin a new era of stability by 2018, when the league aalso will host its inaugural championship game.ddddddddddddenson has said the conference likely would be split into two five-team divisions, with each division winner meeting in the title game. But as of Monday, he said the conference still has not decided whether it wants to go that route, or simply have every team play once -- meaning nine league games -- with the top two meeting in what would be a rematch for the championship. The difficulty with the latter option is that it would limit teams to three non-league games.Without finalizing it, it appears that we would be headed toward the divisions just because we have so many game contracts that go beyond 2018 that call for a fourth non-conference games, Benson said. If we made the decision to eventually go to a single division and play nine conference games, it would take several years to phase that in.This season, the Sun Belt will have tie-ins to five bowl games, with the newest being the Arizona Bowl in Tucson. The league also has agreements with the New Orleans, GoDaddy (Mobile, Alabama), Camellia (Montgomery, Alabama) and Cure (Orlando, Florida) bowls.Benson applauded member institutions for financial commitments in the form of stadium and practice facility improvements in recent years, and said those investments have paid off in the form of growing exposure and revenues for the league.While stopping short of getting into specifics, Benson said Sun Belt revenues have increased tenfold in the past three years, meaning that member institutions now receive distributions exceeding $1 million annually from the league.Benson also reaffirmed his commitment to a strategy he stressed a year ago of scheduling fewer non-conference games against BCS programs and more against peer conferences, even though that path effectively reduces individual programs revenues by cutting back on the number of big paydays they could get from playing at BCS schools.This season, the Sun Belt is reducing BCS opponents by two while playing two more non-league games against similar mid-major programs.That strategy is working, Benson said. Thats the model, thats the non-conference strategy that we need, to allow our football programs and our student athletes an opportunity to succeed, an opportunity to achieve, an opportunity to rise in standings, rise in the polls.---AP College Football: http://collegefootball.ap.org ' ' '