Round and Round, in Search of Believers

The television perched above the corner of the bar was fixed on the all-sports channel. As fate would have it, the latest sports fad was on the tube: roller hockey. Devotees may love it, but ESPN treats it like filler material.

I had come to the Smokehouse in Burbank to meet a man who was sitting at the bar with a couple of friends. John Hall, a 57-year-old television production technician, wore an expression of disdain.

“We could cook those guys,” he declared.

Perhaps it’s a competitive fire that can’t be snuffed. Or maybe John Hall is just a little miffed it isn’t him up on the TV screen anymore.

The name should sound familiar. Over the last four decades, two John Halls have achieved a kind of modest fame in these parts. One was the sports columnist who used to work for this newspaper and recently retired from another. The other was Big John Hall, this John Hall, the John Hall who, even though we’d never met, helped teach me early on that Life Is Unfair.

This John Hall is a living legend in the minor leagues of sport. Before he went to work behind the scenes in TV, he was one of the greatest Roller Derby skaters of all time, the archfiend captain of the Detroit Devils who would steal victories from my beloved Los Angeles Thunderbirds. Later, he would become the T-Birds’ player-coach. But to a little guy whose dad enjoyed watching this stuff, Hall was worse than a devil. He was a cheater.

Just as I loved it when the T-Birds’ amazing Ralphie Valedares skated through Big John’s legs to nail down a victory, I was distressed when Big John went on one of his rampages, scattering T-Birds over the rail and into the infield.

Big John, it turned out, wasn’t as big as I expected. (But then, he wasn’t wearing skates.) His demeanor was that of a soft-spoken gentleman, hardly the brute I remembered from TV.

He had called me up a few weeks ago after seeing a column about how the L.A. Kings’ Stanley Cup fortunes--and the bogus bandwagon effect that came with it--made me nostalgic for Roller Derby and the “Whoa Nellies!” of announcer Dick Lane. When he called, Big John started off by challenging me to a match race--”five laps, anything goes, no holds barred!”

Instead, we met at the Smokehouse, which, for all its 1950s ambience, has no roller rink. He also invited his business partners. Debbie Garvey was an ‘80s-vintage T-Bird of, as she puts it, the “bleached-blond bomber” ilk. Her husband, Ted Marolf, was the Roller Derby announcer when it served as one of ESPN’s fringe sports from 1985 to 1987.

They’ve formed a partnership in hopes of returning Roller Derby to its erstwhile semi-glory. The American public, they said, needs to understand that Roller Derby isn’t dead--that it may be down, but it’s not out.

This was good to hear. Call me sentimental, but Roller Derby is an endangered slice of Americana.

For many years, after growing suspicious of the sport’s authenticity, I’d lost track of the game. In its most recent incarnation, Roller Derby had mutated into this weird spectacle with a figure-8 track and a jump. One skater looked like a skinhead, and the post-game show featured a rap performance. But the gangsta-heavy-metal-on-wheels marketing concept didn’t work.

Pro wrestling, the other big TV fringe sport of my youth, had managed to go big time (thanks in part to steroid abuse). Roller Derby, meanwhile, all but disappeared.

But, Marolf says, people who think it’s dead weren’t at the home arena of pro basketball’s Detroit Pistons last February when a Roller Derby exhibition staged by another promoter attracted more than 12,000 fans. And they may not be aware that a thriving league in Japan recently played host to a team of American skaters assembled by Hall and Marolf for a seven-game series. (The Japanese won, four games to three, to Hall’s professed chagrin. “Let’s say it was hometown officiating,” he grumbled.)

For Roller Derby to make a comeback, Hall says, it needs to get back to the fundamentals and nurture a new generation of skaters to match the genuine athletic prowess of such T-Bird stars as Valedares and Terry Lynch, the longtime leader of the T-Bird women.

Hall’s dream is to open a training facility. He’d recruit the sort of athletes who yearn to be the next Lazer or Thor on American Gladiators and transform them into skaters. They’d launch a six-city league in the Midwest and South, where Roller Derby has long had a strong following. Marolf envisions it as “sports entertainment” that would find its place in the vast world of cable TV.

They’ve had chats with cable mogul Ted Turner about their plans, as well as potential Japanese investors. Nothing solid has come of it, but Hall and company express hope. They are grown-ups who still believe in Roller Derby, long after this fan figured out that the fix was in.

And you know what? Hall and company say I’m wrong--that the fix wasn’t in.

They insist that Roller Derby, for all its theatrics and showmanship, presented genuine competition. To hear them tell it, the dynamics were sort of like a mix of pro basketball and pro hockey. As in basketball, the ebb and flow of momentum would frequently leave the result in doubt until the final seconds. As in hockey, the legitimate physical contact would sometimes give way to cheap shots.

Well, I’ll allow that it seems possible. Maybe Roller Derby’s problem is that people started to think it was phony even though it wasn’t.

Or maybe they just want to bring me back into the fold--to make me a believer, again.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Readers may write Harris at The Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311.