What Goes Around Comes Around--Like Roller Derby

Is this a cool way to kick off the new year or what?

Roller Derby is back!

Wheels spinning, elbows flailing, bodies hurtling over the rail, yessir!

So what if they’re calling it “Rollerjam” when it premieres on TNN next Friday for a weekly, Friday-night 8-to-10 run? Sure, the teams speed ‘round the banked track on in-line skates now, with all the sound-stage gleam and laser-light staging that wrestling has perfected for tube-friendly family appeal. (To get you ready, tonight at 9, TNN shows a one-hour documentary on the history of Roller Derby.)

But it’s still rock-’em, sock-’em Roller Derby, where men slam men, women slam women, feuds are fueled, and all’s right with the world.

Jerry Seltzer will make sure of that. Jerry’s dad, Leo, founded Roller Derby (it’s a trademark) in 1935, a spinoff of Depression-era dance marathons. Early derbies were essentially endurance races, running as long as 40 days straight (something biblical there?), and running straight too--no boom-crash-bang at first. But when competitors started pummeling each other, audiences started cheering. And thus was born the wrangling Roller Derby we came to know and love in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Remember the San Francisco Bay Bombers, the Midwest Pioneers, the New York Chiefs? Charlie O’Connell, Buddy Atkinson Jr., Ann Calvello? And the immortal Joanie Weston? Or maybe you fell for Raquel Welch skating through her 1972 flick “Kansas City Bomber.”

That’s the Roller Derby that Jerry Seltzer ran from 1958 to 1973, when he had to close it down because of the fiscal impossibility of “trying to carry the whole thing ourselves, which was finally too much of a load to bear, believe me,” Seltzer remembers by phone from his Sonoma, Calif., home. “We were kind of a hand-to-mouth operation, and unfortunately never bankrolled strong enough to withstand the vicissitudes of fortune.” He’s back for “Rollerjam” as a mere employee, the “commissioner” of the new World Skating League, a title one might consider dubious because of the way it’s employed in wrestling, as just one more on-screen character for fans to hiss.

“Well, I’m not a character,” Seltzer says, “I’m a very dignified person,” but you can see his tongue in his cheek over the phone line. Sure, this 66-year-old entrepreneur ran a ticketing company that got absorbed by Ticketmaster, and he heads the Sonoma Film Festival. But right after he ballyhoos dignity, he’s proclaiming, “The NBA heard we were coming, and they were so scared, they canceled their season.” Heh heh. Then he adds, “That makes a lot more building availability” for Roller Derby matches.

And that, Derby devotees, is the reason we love Jerry Seltzer. He isn’t just here to hype some TV show. Seltzer is dedicated to reviving the Derby’s real appeal as a bone-crunching, arena-rattling, fan-firing live attraction, the kind that used to sell out Madison Square Garden (which hosted the original Roller Derby’s final match in 1973).

“The thing I’m more concerned with than anything right now,” Seltzer says, “is talking to possible franchises and working on live appearances around the country.” TNN’s “Rollerjam” show is being beamed from a specially constructed sound stage in Orlando’s Universal Studios. Right now the World Skating League’s founding teams are located in name only: the Florida Sundogs, California Quakes, New York Enforcers. But Seltzer promises, “There will be games scheduled for the Enforcers to skate in New York. Absolutely. We’re not merely going to let the pictures go into America’s living rooms, we’re going to make people get out of their houses and go see action in arenas.”

Everybody is welcome at Roller Derby, and that’s what made it such a mid-century American staple. What else was a female athlete to do in, say, the ‘50s, when Weston burst to fame with blond locks flowing?

Black athletes were welcome, and Latino names were common too. “Nothing was really made of that” among Derby participants, Seltzer adds, “but that’s true.”

Will Derby Revival Go the Way of ‘Rollergames’?

Seltzer can tell you when the Derby aired on what station in which market of the 110 cities he covered in those high-flying years of ‘60s syndication.

But even with that storied history, how can a sport be dead for 25 years and then be revived? A boost from TV doesn’t always do the trick, as proved by the ill-fated 1989 gimmick of “Rollergames,” complete with alligator pit. “I watched that as a, let’s say, disinterested spectator,” Seltzer recalls. “My comment then was, if anyone ever wanted to bring the game back, this sure destroyed it.”

Not quite. And the legendary Weston is the one who spurred this current resurrection. Though Weston tried to keep the sport alive, by training skaters and holding exhibitions, Derby was still dormant when Weston died in 1997 (of the rare Creutzfeldt-Jakob brain disorder, commonly known as mad-cow disease). But then old Derby devotee Frank Deford (author of “Five Strides on the Banked Track”) penned a year-end tribute to Weston in the New York Times. “They had Princess [Diana] and they had Joan Weston,” Seltzer notes proudly. Upon reading the story, TV executive Stephen Land was inspired to get together with TNN and make Weston’s dream come true.

It isn’t just nostalgia, Seltzer insists. “There’s always been a basic merit to the game. Otherwise, people would not have come out. It’s definitely an Everyman game. You know, you or I could be a skater. You look at ‘em, and you say, they’re not 7-foot-3 and they don’t weigh 325 pounds.”

But the new “Rollerjam” athletes aren’t exactly the old-era brawlers, either. “We have some ex-football players, we have some ex-hockey players. That couple from Finland, you’d love to get them from Central Casting,” Seltzer says of husband-and-wife skaters Pasi and Susanne Schalin, major blond beefcake and babe of the league’s Florida team. “But did we pick the men for looks and the women for beauty? The answer is no.”

With in-line skating so hot today, they had plenty of folks to choose from. Heather Gunnin and Debbie Rice are former speed skating teammates and ex-roommates being hyped for their “real-life” ill will. Tim Washington, a cousin of boxer Marvin Hagler, has competed in boxing, football and arm wrestling. Brian Gamble is a martial arts expert. Sam and Micah Martin bring their brotherly rivalry to the track.

Some Roller Derby originals are back too. With Buddy Atkinson Jr. now serving as a trainer, his son Sean marks the family’s third generation of skaters. Fifty-one-year-old Richard Brown returns from the famed Bay Bombers. Training along with Atkinson are former skaters Erwin Miller and Nick Scopas (who was married to Weston).

They’ve been passing the torch to a new generation in “Rollerjam’s” Florida training camp since June. Even if today’s kids can skate, they don’t know what the heck Roller Derby is. “We’re teaching from video, because it’s a game no one has seen,” says Seltzer. “It’s like going to Tibet and teaching the mountain people American football.”

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* For more on Roller Derby, visit “Rollerjam’s” Web site at https://www.rollerjam.com. Or find the video of 1970’s acclaimed documentary “Derby,” a behind-the-scenes slice of Roller Derby life. And ESPN Classic Sports runs vintage “Roller Super Stars” action Sunday at 8 a.m.