Derby Name: TuTu LaRue #22
Real Life Alias: Billie Jo Mosley Burns
Freshie Year: 2012-2013 with G-Force
Number of Tattoos: 2
We call her “The Ever Graceful TuTu LaRue” but you can call her a jammer’s worst nightmare. And we’re not gonna lie, we all know her butt is magical. Even though you know you can’t get around her easily as a jammer you are just drawn to trying, and that’s alright by ARG! She is the 2017 AllStars Captain and a proud, important member of ARG.
Her derby career started with G-Force in December 2012 but long before that she was an art skater for over 11 years. Unfortunately, as an art skater she learned how to fall a very specific way, so falling on her knees was an incredibly difficult transition for her to make. You spend 11 years learning to fall on the meaty part of your thighs and rear, and then derby strapped some pads on her and told her to hit her knees first, it was counter-intuitive to her previous training to say the least. But she made it through that to her first bout in a co-ed invitational and then with her team against Smokey Mountain Rollergirls. She remembers the highs and lows of that bout well, an injured teammate but they won.
If you want to get on TuTu’s good side she really likes tutus, in case her name didn’t tell you. Pink, purple, glitter, light up yeah, she probably has that kind of tutu at home. And at least when you have a name like TuTu it is easy to pick your number, or sometimes your number picks your name when a lot of things in your life revolve around the number 22. But clowns can just stay away. Far, far away. If she was the lawyer that she originally wanted to be when she was growing up there would probably be a standing restraining order on all clowns getting within 100-yard radius, but she became a master barber instead. That’s right, this fiercely fabulous blocker extraordinaire can also provide a nice close shave with a straight razor. Don’t ask her to do your makeup though, that’s not her thing.
TuTu has one of the longer drives for ARG players to get to bouts and practices as she lives in Belmont NC right now and commutes up to Boone for practice, a fact that we are eternally grateful for. She has a day job that seems to involve her posting pictures of amazing looking food to make the rest of us jealous. Or maybe there is other accounting work going on behind the scenes. All we know, is that she’s happiest whenever she is on skates, and the only break she really took from skating was to get married and have a kid. Since he skates too we are giving them both a pass on that one. She made up for it by working to foster the love of derby in others and encouraging new skaters. She has an abundance of derby littles as well as two current derby wives. And if you want to see her at some of her happiest you should check her out when she’s on the track.
Buy the woman a hotdog after practice, make it grilled crispy so that it’s a little black then smother it in chili, cheese and ketchup, but leave the mustard at home, she takes enough shots of that at practice and hates every slurp.
Photo Credit: Terry Bruce
