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America's Roller Derby Roots The 1930's Invention
Roller Derby first appeared as a marathon in Chicago, 1935, invented and promoted by Leo Seltzer.
Men and women skaters simulated a cross-country marathon race by circling thousands of times on a banked surface. The contestants competed against time like the monster marathon dance competitions of the 1930's.
Whirring in endless ovals, resting in the infield, depleted players collapsed from fatigue. A Doctor and nurse monitored contestants health. Winners of the grueling race won fictitious prizes. Some roller marathon events weathered for months to completion. Marathon skaters and staff were paid to work full-time for the new fangled attraction. For the millions of depression-era jobless, derby was a life saver offering work, food and shelter.
Following the 1935 derby debut, the transcontinental roller marathon rambled "on the road" holing up in cities, constructing a bulky track and racing for weeks at a time. Like a traveling carnival, the track was dismantled and the entire outfit embarked to the next town. Players were fed and slept in quarters like coveted pedigree horses. Everyone built faithful ties; becoming an intense culture of brothers and sisters bound together by a deep passion for skating roller derby.
The spectacle accommodated a touch of vaudeville and escapism for the audiences in desperate financial times and a close-knit home for the players like a second family.
After two years, the marathon contest undertook an overhaul into a team sport; with two co-ed teams of five skaters circling the banks in a pack, each team sent out an offensive "jammer" who rounded the field and lapped opponents; scoring a point. Teams consisted of alternating women's and men's squads accumulating points into a final winning score. Roller Derby was proclaimed the first team sport where women played to the same rules as men. The monster sized track had high forty-five degree banks with kick and guard rails to protect the players.
The 1940's and 50s
By the mid 1940s, roller derby
games became fashionable. Skaters traveled extensively bringing
the family bond closer. Some players dated, found love and
married one another taking the derby-family to
another level of intensity.
Roller Derby encountered live
television
in late 1946 and in 1948 a live NY game telecast generated an overnight sensation that
sold out the arena the very next day.
Roller Derby soared. Television birthed the derby's first
exposure to national fame;
initiating a long love affair between derby and Television audiences.
Along came the pop-term Roller Derby star. Players
developed followings; adulation rocketed, six teams and two skating units barnstormed the Nation.
Throngs of fans attend live games in the 1950s. The traveling Derby troupes canvassed America, renting arena's, Armories and outdoor stadiums. A single live bout brought in 20 thousand middle class followers and more. Mickey Rooney and Marilyn Monroe made a derby movie titled the Fireball. Live TV over-saturated the sport dwindling it's popularity.
Baby Boomers Derby
In the 1960's, San Francisco became
the "hotbed" for roller derby when Leo's son
Jerry took over the helm of the Derby. The players improvised
bone-crushing body contact; incorporating Football-like strategies.
Most high impact games featured the Bay Bombers, America's favorite
team. Women players aggressive maneuvers became
role models representing high paying
careers
for independent women.
By lowering the tracks' banks and sizing
down to a basketball court capacity; Roller Derby qualified for
demanding one night stands. The globe trotting adventures
dispatched the game to exotic international venues. Back in
the Bay Area, live games sold out
big sports buildings like Sacramento Auditorium, San Jose Civic, Oakland
Arena,
Stockton Auditorium and San Francisco Cow Palace. Games played a
stringent five times a week schedule. Local
newspapers reported league standings. San Francisco's historic
Kezar Pavilion was the Sunday afternoon TV home for the Bombers in the
burgeoning Hippie culture's Haight and Ashbury district.
The Bombers live telecasts blanketed Bay
Area televisions. Video syndication aired the game-tapes
to over 120 cities across America. Full time wandering
units performed exhibitions in hundreds of sports halls across
America. Roller Derby's syndicated TV shows garnered
immense popularity from 1960 to 1973. Skaters became
household names; including Joan Weston, Charlie
O'Connell and Ann Calvello. The sport reached major
league status.
1973 Roller Derby Closes
In the Los Angeles area competing leagues NSD and RGI,
Roller Games
flourished using the same derby-business model as in Northern
California.
Southern California TV featured the
T-Birds.
The
Los Angeles Thunderbirds are
another of the most popular and well known teams in Derby's
history. The legendary team was founded in 1960 by Herb Roberts
and later acquired by Bill Griffiths and Jerry Hill in late
1961.
Within a few years, the T-Birds popularity rivaled that of the
other major sports teams in Los Angeles.
Roller Games remained as such until Sept 1974 when
National
Skating Derby ended.
In 1989, David Sams brought back a
Rock and Rollergames
TV show.
Roller Games
closed doors in 1975. All TV Derby was dead.
For David Lipshultz's IRSL,
the big crowds followed his Bombers. David employed famous skaters from derby's history and his games appeared on a hand full of
local TV networks, reaching a few million new viewers.
In 1989 another league appeared
on 10-weeks of TV called the World Roller Federation (WRF)
bringing together Roller Games and Roller Derby players as a historical
first. WRF distributed their fast action derby tapes to
select UHF stations in Cincinnati,
Dallas, Florida
and other cities. At this same time a touring league, the ARSD,
an outgrowth from Joan Weston's Hayward California training
center. The ARSD, lead by Weston, Tim Patten,
Deloris Holmes, Ken Prince and Dee Dee Medina, skating charity events around
Northern California for over four years. The name of
the event was coined; Rollerjam! Tim Patten also
registered the Bay City Bombers in 1988.
The Rollerjam TV Revival
After Joan Weston passed in 1997, an
inspired TV producer, Stephen Land, raised ten million dollars to launch the
biggest production of his TV career. He called his new show RollerJam and
styled it as a modern inline version of Seltzer's original Roller Derby.
It became professional wrestling on skates and appeared weekly on the TNN network (now SpikeTV)
The RollerJam mark was sold by Tim
Patten to CBS/TNN for a sizable sum. The weekly RollerJam TV show ran successfully for two years in America;
reaching the highest viewed audience in the networks history. After the
run, the show was syndicated to seventeen foreign countries. In 2006 the
show was sold to United Kingdom, re-edited where it aired every week.
Enter the Rollergirls
Early 2001, the sport roared
full speed ahead when another rebirth was ignited;
notability decentralized flat track
girl leagues. In 2001, the
SHE-CEO pioneers; a rowdy group of Austin women visited this web
site (Bay City Bombers) and read the rules to the game and
innovated a roller rink version. The first game was a
skating party.
the Austin girls envisioned a kitsch rock and theater show
that over time, migrated into more of a sport. Austin
unleashed a roller derby revolution
and the Bay City Bombers assisted with business advice and a
banked track for one Austin league. The
Women's
Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) formed in
2004, consisted of a handful of flat track roller derby leagues,
each owned and operated by skaters who share the singular,
driving compulsion to re-imagine roller derby as a sport.
The organization has expanded since it's humble 2004
beginnings.
WFTDA is a cooperative effort to advance women’s flat
track roller derby worldwide; providing guidance,
regulations, sisterhood, and opportunities to compete
legitimately with rink-roller derby athletes country-wide. WFTDA
is a big success; organizing inter-league bouts, regional, National meets
and conventions.
The Current Roller Derby Scene
Today, Roller Derby is played
by professional and amateur skaters under an intensifying scene. Derby Athletes reach higher and further than
ever before. The professional teams, the BOMBERS from the
ARSD and ARDL, have competed on the banked track
since 1995. Amateur leagues are volunteers who skate roller rink
style and pay dues to fund their sports activities.
Hundreds of amateur, many all-girl leagues and teams are active at local roller rinks and associate with cooperatives like WFTDA/OSDA. Some leagues operate on their own. Skaters practice and bout on teams while the rules and style of play broadens. Roller Derby has become big league.
There are a few professional leagues compensating skaters, covering expenses and administering banked track training at no charge.
In 2008, men's leagues are a strengthening trend; the sport is no longer for women only.
Currently in 2010, the derby-milieu includes co-ed, all-women's and all-men's teams representing cities worldwide. There are tens of thousands of skaters and hundreds of thousands of loyal followers of roller derby. One over-powering emotion binding all these colleagues into one kindred family is a profound passion for the sport. - - -
Roller Derby today, is much bigger than it ever was. The past is a memory of people and games gone by the wayside and is replaced with a new fever and excitement of modernism. Roller Derby is lodged permanently in the hearts of players and spectators who embrace and assure success. America's fastest growing sport is not going anywhere but up. Roller Derby is back; it's future is boundless.
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