A Note from Your Blogger: This piece, which I’ve updated, was initially posted a few years ago on the now defunct website, Atomic Kulture Magazine. Since then, Melissa “Melicious” Joulwan has retired from the flat track and dedicated herself to healthy living. Her cookbook, Well Fed: Paleo Recipes for People Who Love to Eat, has just been released.
I’ve never been an athletic individual. Sure, I enjoyed playing kickball, like every other red-blooded American first grader. My mother always had the badminton net set up on our lawn each summer, and my older brother would take delight in swatting the shuttlecock towards me, usually aiming for my head. Gym class allowed me to display my awkwardness and lack of coordination in all of its glory. No, becoming the star pitcher on my high school’s softball team or a free throw queen was not in the cards for me.
Watching sports—two, in particular—was another story.
My stepfather, Charlie, and I never had much in common. Charlie was a broad, husky man with a rare, booming laugh who enjoyed the outdoors and tinkering with cars; I was a shy, underweight kid who always had her nose in a book, her tiny clock radio turned up too loudly or her pen furiously scribbling a new story onto pieces of scrap paper. We were polar opposites in every way, night and day, yet Charlie and I always came together on two occasions: one was to watch NWA World Championship Wrestling every Saturday night; the other was for roller derby.
I remember sitting next to Charlie on our couch as we gathered around the television, my brother’s lanky frame splayed across the living room floor. The Los Angeles Thunderbirds, or “T-Birds”, were our team. We would shout encouragement at Ralphie Valladares as he scurried around the track on his skates, attempting to score points for his team as he weaved through a flock of skaters. We loved the excitement, the drama and, yes, the violence. In some households, family togetherness occurs over dinner or a school play performance; in my home, it was roller derby.
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| Leo Seltzer. Photo courtesy of bankedtrackinfo.com |
Although roller derby is as popular as ever, the sport has a long and rocky history, dating back to the Great Depression. Leo Seltzer was a businessman who made a decent living off of promoting marathon-style events. Pole-sitting, walkathons—nothing was too bizarre for Leo or too offbeat for cash-strapped Americans desperate for affordable entertainment. Seltzer was savvy enough to realize that such unusual performances wouldn’t inspire repeat business. In 1933, he relocated his operation to Chicago. The roller skating trend of the time proved to be an inspiration to Leo and, on August 13, 1935, with an astounding 20,000 people in attendance, the first Transcontinental Derby was held. The derby consisted of 25 boy-girl couples who attempted to outlast each other as they skated the approximate distance from New York to California around a banked track. With eighteen laps the equivalent of one mile and skaters on the track fourteen hours a day, seven days a week for seven consecutive weeks, the contest was grueling. The participants’ progress was charted on a light-up map of Route 66, and spectators enthusiastically cheered for their favorite team.
The genesis of roller derby, as we know it today, isn’t entirely clear, but the widely accepted version has the sport beginning as an accident. According to the story, during a 1937 derby in Miami, a larger male skater elbowed his smaller counterparts—whether it was a deliberate act or accidental has never been established. When the derby’s referees penalized the skater, they were soundly booed by the audience. Damon Runyon, a writer who happened to be in attendance at that evening’s derby, had an idea. He suggested to Leo Seltzer that the shoving and fighting be integrated into the sport, and the pair composed the new rules for roller derby that night. The new version of the derby called for two teams, comprised of both male and female squads, to square off against each other. Each team would be allowed one “jammer” at a time on the track. Teams were also permitted three blockers, whose goal was to prevent the jammer from passing them, and a pivot, to skate in front of and control the speed of the pack. The jammer’s objective was to navigate through the squad from their starting position at the rear of the pack, circle the track, then pass the opposing team’s blockers to score as many points as possible during the designated period of the “jam”. The whole process would continue until the end of the game, when the team with the most points scored would be declared the winner.
Throughout the 1930s and well into the ‘40s—save for a few years during the World War II era, when the majority of the sport’s skaters enlisted or were drafted into the military—roller derby thrived. A new medium known as television capitalized on the roller derby boom and broadcast several hours of action each week. Derby stars, such as Billy Bogash and Charlie O’Connell, captured the spotlight and the attentions of roller derby fans. However, no skater was as colorful or as charismatic as the woman whom many a Rollergirl would fashion herself after, Ann Calvello.
Ann Calvello skated her first derby bout in 1948, and quickly became the woman that roller derby enthusiasts loved to hate. Known as the “Queen of the Penalty Box” for her roughhouse style, Ann was ahead of her time. Calvello would take liberties with her appearance, wearing wild glasses and hacking off the sleeves and neckline of her uniform in order to expose just a little more skin. “Ann was a rabble rouser and was definitely the role model for the modern Rollergirls, with [her] “Easter egg-colored hair and larger-than-life attitude,” commented Melissa “Melicious” Joulwan, skater for the Austin-based Texas Rollergirls’ team, Hotrod Honeys, and author of Rollergirl: Totally True Tales from the Track.
While Ann Calvello was roller derby’s residing bad girl, Joanie Weston, aka the “Blond Bomber”, was the sugar to Ann’s spice. “Joanie was so lovely and had such integrity when she played,” Melicious remarked. It’s a sentiment held by many a derby follower. Buxom and muscular, Joanie played the pivot position for the Oakland Bombers, and also served as the team’s longtime captain. During her tenure with the Bombers, the team became the league’s most profitable; when Joanie made the switch to the Midwest Pioneers later in her career, the money followed. It was a testament to Joanie’s star quality.
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| Joanie Weston battles Ann Calvello. Photo: rollerderbyhalloffame.com |
By the mid-1950s, roller derby fever had reached its peak, and the sport began to lose its grip on the nation. Leo Seltzer and his son, Jerry, who began to oversee operations of the roller derby business, were also facing the emergence of rival leagues. In 1961, Bill Griffiths, Sr. and Jerry Hill founded Roller Games, the West Coast-based league responsible for the formation of my beloved L.A. T-Birds. Although the organization would eventually fold, the Seltzers had been dealt some heavy blows to the wallet, including the loss of several star skaters to their rivals. It would be the 1970s before roller derby enjoyed the level of success that it had in the early days of television.
Although roller derby faded from view, it never really went away. After its 1970s comeback waned, the sport enjoyed another surge in popularity during the ‘80s. The old Roller Games league was revived on T.V. in the decade’s latter years, with skaters navigating a banked figure-eight track, complete with a jump of several feet. It wasn’t long before Roller Games took a page from the book of pro wrestling and began to develop lackluster storylines for its players. When the league added an alligator pit to the track, the writing for the company appeared to be on the wall, and Roller Games folded within a few short years.
Another attempt to bring roller derby onto the airwaves—and into the 21st century—came in the late 1990s, in the form of the World Skating League’s “RollerJam”. “I’ve watched a few episodes of ‘RollerJam’, and it’s really too bad it didn’t do better in the ratings,” Melicious began. “They seemed to start with the right ingredients: talented athletes; high production values. One of the problems, I think, was the ugly uniforms and the inline skates. It was very spandexy….I think the retro aspects of roller derby and quad skates appeal to people, and ‘RollerJam’ didn’t have that. And then, they interjected wrestling-like storylines in a way that overshadowed the skating. With the new wave of roller derby, we’ve put the sport in the spotlight and use the fun stuff—personas, rivalries, other entertainment aspects—as a cherry on top of the sundae.”
That ideology would be roller derby’s saving grace. At the beginning of the century, “RollerJam” was floundering, but roller derby was about to be resurrected in a big way. “The Bad Girl Good Woman league, which was comprised of Texas Rollergirls skaters, was the beginning of the modern roller derby revolution,” Melicious explained. “Many members of the Texas Rollergirls were at the initial meeting [in 2000], at a bar on Sixth Street in Austin, where the idea was hatched.”
Melicious, herself, became bitten by the roller derby bug after attending the first BGGW derby match-up. “I think the most honest answer is that I was searching,” she confided when I inquired about her decision to become a Rollergirl. “I’d just left a very ‘grown-up’ job in San Francisco and was trying to decide not only what I wanted to do with my life, but what kind of person I wanted to be. I spent most of my young adulthood being a ‘pleaser’. I was never very rebellious, then suddenly, I wanted to be more adventurous and fearless, but I also wanted to find good friends and live my life with truth and integrity. It sounds corny, I know, and I’m sure it seems wacky that roller derby, of all things, was the catalyst that helped me become more like the person I wanted to be. Playing at being Melicious allowed other parts of my personality to emerge, and my confidence soared.
“So, that’s the long, psychobabble answer,” concluded Melicious. “The other, short answer is that roller derby looked like a whole lot of fun and a big challenge. I really like to try to do things I’m not sure I can do, and I was definitely not sure I was tough enough to play roller derby.”
Other women who have laced up the skates seem to have similar reasons for doing so. “I think a lot of women join to get some exercise and make new friends,” Melicious observed. “Then, they get bitten by the competition bug and find that they love the sport. It’s energizing and confidence-building in ways I don’t think you can understand until you’ve played. It’s very empowering.”
Melicious had been adept on roller skates for years, but she still had a lot to learn before stepping onto the track as a full-fledged Rollergirl. “Because I’d never played team sports, I felt like I had a pretty steep learning curve,” she recalled. “I had great cardiovascular endurance when I joined, and I was stable on my skates from years of being a skate rat back in Pennsylvania, but game strategy and team politics were foreign to me. It took me about six months until I could watch a pack of skaters and really see what was going on—to know if someone was playing well—and to learn how to deconstruct what they were doing so I could do it, too.”
Following the division of Bad Girl Good Woman Productions into two Rollergirl leagues, the Texas Rollergirls and the TXRD Lonestar Rollergirls, the Lonestar Rollergirls began utilizing a banked track for bouts, while the Texas Rollergirls favored the flat track. Purchasing a banked track can be costly, to the tune of thousands of dollars, yet flat track derby can be played virtually anywhere. It also enables the fans to have an in-your-face view of the action.
Flat Track derby has other advantages, too, as Melicious pointed out. “In terms of the rules, it’s also made for more dynamic play. On the banked track, the momentum forces skaters toward the infield, but on the flat track, skaters can have much more lateral movement, so there’s a lot of dynamism in the pack. Skaters can move side to side while the whole pack is moving very quickly forward. I think the flat track makes the game more interesting, because the jammers have a lot of choice about how to try to snake through the pack—and the blockers have more options for how to stop them.”
Flat Track roller derby has eclipsed banked track derby in terms of prevalence, and even has its own governing body, the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association. The WFTDA enforces the rules of the game and holds annual tournaments, through which Melicious has met, and learned from, many a talented skater. “In Flat Track, the skaters I admire are the ones who excel both at the sport and at being good women. It’s tough to be a hardcore competitor and be committed to your principles but, over and over, I see Rollergirls who deliver in both arenas,” Melicious began. “It sounds clichéd, but I’ve learned from every member of the Texas Rollergirls. And, in other leagues, Crackerjack from [Madison, Wisconsin’s] the Mad Rollin’ Dolls [as of this revision, skating with the Texas Rollergirls], Sheriff Shutyerpaio from Arizona Roller Derby [as of 2012, skating with ARD affiliate, Tucson Roller Derby, as Helen Wheels]—they’re incredible athletes, and they just have so much fun on the track.”
One such athlete that Melicious has been a scholar of is fellow Texas Rollergirl, Hydra. “She was involved in the derby revolution from the very beginning, and was a guiding force in developing the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association,” Melicious commented. “She’s smart, motivated, kind and considerate—but never a pushover—and always a fierce, clean competitor. She is the modern pinnacle of being a Rollergirl.”
Recently, the A&E television network jumped on the reality T.V. bandwagon with “Rollergirls”, a weekly show that focused on the personal lives and match-ups of the TXRD Lonestar Rollergirls. Observers seemed to enjoy the new twist to an old favorite: entrance music and sexier uniforms, yet the same vivid personalities and emphasis on actual skating. Although the show lasted for only one season, it was a catalyst in roller derby’s return to the mainstream. Melicious agreed. “I think that the A&E show did a great job of introducing women around the world to the idea of roller derby, and when they went online to learn more, they found all of the Flat Track leagues around the country—and the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association—and they realized they could do it, too. No track necessary. No permission from anyone needed. Just get some gear, some skates, some women willing to play and you’re ready to go.”
With over 130 Rollergirl-owned and operated leagues in the United States, roller derby appears to have, once again, risen from the dead. The women may have made a triumphant return to the track, but what about the men? Why aren’t male derby leagues, despite their existence, enjoying the same attentions as their female counterparts? Melicious offered an explanation. “All women become beautiful Amazons on skates. ALL women. Men want to watch women skate, and women want to watch women skate. I’m as straight as a ruler, and I have zero interest in watching a man skate—even if he’s super hot. I’d much rather watch a woman rolling around out there. I haven’t been able to decipher the mystique, but it’s there, and it’s irresistible.”
So, what is the allure of roller derby? Is it the sexing up of the sport, the athleticism, or something else? Why do fans—including myself—keep coming back for more? Perhaps Melicious said it best. “One of the best things about roller derby is that it’s just pure fun. Sure, there’s strategy involved in playing the game well…but it can’t be taken too seriously, and I think there’s huge appeal in that. Plus, there’s the delicious possibility that a pretty girl is going to fall down.
“On a more serious note, I think part of the appeal of the modern Flat Track leagues is the punk rock ethos of the leagues being skater-owned and operated. I’ve heard a lot of positive feedback on that aspect of the business in my travels. It’s inspiring to people that the athletes are playing on their own terms and controlling their own destinies. Rollergirls play for the love of the game and each other, and people find that compelling.”
For more information about Melissa “Melicious” Joulwan, check out her website—and her new cookbook—at www.theclothesmakethegirl.com
For more information on the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, log onto www.wftda.com
