 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Alan Ebert (Continued)
Going, Going, Gone
I have never known or understood how Derby went from such astounding success and near acceptance of the sports world back to the garbage it had been and became once again. By 1954, Derby's audience had fled. The playoffs were held in the 14th Street Armory and at its end, Derby disappeared from the New York area until 1957/58 season. By then, it was a ghost of its former self. Management had screwed up, as did the skaters who steadfastly resisted any change in the game. We're not paid enough to risk our lives many said regarding a "New Game" that would have required more of them as skaters. That "more" was physical risk. But many were just plain afraid that in a "spontaneous" game, they couldn't cut it, that younger skaters would out skate them, leave them in the dust. There were many stars who really couldn't skate worth a lick and they knew it and, by the way, so did management. The Roller Derby I grew up with, loved, worked with and for, is long dead.
It began its slow and horrible death with that garbage that Roller Games put on in Los Angeles in the Sixties, a truly disgusting mix of wrestling and skating, and tried to resurrect itself in that same decade with Jensen, Weston and O'Connell bringing glamor and some damn good skating to the Bay Area and later the rest of the country, assisted ably by Joe Foster, Delores Tucker, Annie Bauer, Barbara Baker, Gil Orozco and others.
It's last incarnation in Florida was an embarrassment and an abomination. Watching Sean Atkinson in a straight jacket on the track was a disgrace to every skater that had come before him. As were the blond bimbos in halter tops. Of course these skaters had no leader, no role model, no one to instruct them on the fine art of 'building" a race, of saving the "heat" till it simmered into a final "blow off." These children, although talented skaters, were not talented Roller Derby professionals. But how could they be without "mentors" and role model?
The truth is...Roller Derby actually began dying just as it began its life. With the world at its feet in the late 40's and very early 50's in New York, the Seltzers were short sighted and not interested seemingly in the longevity of their game. Maybe they knew there were too many obstacles to its on going success. There was a built in problem to Roller Derby that no one other than a Rockefeller or a Getty, could solve as it was unsolvable without an outlay of millions of dollars. Whereas every town in America has a ballfield, lots of ballfields for baseball and football, whereas in every city, within every few blocks one can always find a "pickup game" for basketball and even some, tennis courts and in Canada, fields of ice for hockey to be played, there were no banked tracks throughout America where kids, smitten with the game as I was in Brooklyn, could learn to skate. There were no national training schools. To skate in Roller Derby one had to be where the game was played in order to participate in the training school. And there were no minor leagues, no place for the kids to learn the intricacies of the game. And no one in those early days cared to deal with those problems. There was no thought given to anything other than the immediate future. And to this day, that saddens me as I still believe when Roller Derby is played/skated to its full potential, it is as good a game, a sport, as any that has been invented. Actually, in my mind, I think it is better.
But only rarely has that (skating to the maximum potential) been done. We all wasted a glorious opportunity. And to this day I still wonder why did the very people who created, and those who earned their living skating, not believe in their game more. They did when they first created or joined to skate in it. Where did that belief go? Why did they settle for such crap instead of risking all to go for the gold? It's a question that will never be truthfully answered. But many will have their opinions.
What's yours?