Chicago, Illinois

The Chicago Coliseum (above) in the 1960s and the current building below which is now the Chicago outpost of Soka Gakkai International, a lay Buddhist organization.

 

 

Chicago, Illinois is the third most populous city in the United States with a population of 2.746 million people according to the 2020 census.

 

In the major professional sports, they have five teams who have won at least one championship.  They are the Bears (NFL), Bulls (NBA), Blackhawks (NHL), Cubs (MLB NL) and White Sox (MLB AL).  Athletes such as Walter Payton, Michael Jordan, Bobby Hull, Ernie Banks and Frank Thomas are household names in the Windy City.

 

Other than Roller Derby fans, it would be interesting how many fans know where Roller Derby was born.

 

On August 13, 1935, Roller Derby was born.  Leo Seltzer was the man responsible.

 

Seltzer acquired a lease on the Chicago Coliseum (photos above) and added wheels to his walkathon concept that he came up with in 1929. Seltzer read in a magazine that roughly 90% of the American population roller skated at one time or another.   He would then advertise roller derby marathon events on a banked track.  A team of two (one female and one male) would skate 64,000 laps or 400 miles, covering 100 miles per day over a period of six weeks.

 

Setting out to make roller derby the greatest legitimate contact sport of all time, unlike wrestling, which tended to be more show biz than sport, Seltzer would barnstorm the country with his $20,000 portable track, charging 10 to 25 cents admission.

 

His first "Transcontinental Derby" at the Coliseum had 20,000 fans who attended.  Two person teams comprising of a man and a woman would skate 57,000 laps around a flat track.  The first team to reach 2,700 miles was declared the winner.  On an average, this derby would take about three weeks on the average.

 

Looking at some of the events, the skaters would skate in places around the country.  They included Louisville, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Baltimore. 

 

It wouldn't be a success until he met sportswriter Damon Runyon, who helped him rework the rules and adding some physical activity.  Skaters would be elbowing and whipping each other like slingshots for even greater speeds and slamming opponents into an unforgiving rail.

 

As the game evolved into two five-member teams of men and women who rotated time on the track, the teams’ names changed depending on the city they were visiting.