Judy Sowinski

Photo taken from the magazine, Inside The Roller Games.

 

Over the sixty years of following the skaters on the banked track, there is one skater that is more impressing each time her name has been mentioned.

 

Back on August 3, 1966, this blogger's second Roller Derby game was an inter-league one.  This took place nearby home at Castro Valley High School on their football field.

 

The NSD's Chicago Hawks would take on the IRDL's Bay Bombers.  From recollection, they would be led by coach, John Parker, George Vogt, Sally Vega, Tony Tagg and my featured skater, Judy Sowinski.

 

The Hawks won that night.  Though being a Bombers fan at the time, Sowinski and Tagg worked really well as a tandem.  Sowinski was a force and was in on many scoring plays with the Hawks, especially with Sally Vega as the jammer. 

 

Vaguely, I remembered watching on television the previous Sunday night.  Sowinski was mentioned time and time again by announcer, Walt Harris.  She gave Bombers' women's captain, Joan Weston fits with her skating style which was faster and just as good with her blocks!

 

Judy was interested in banked track skating back in 1957 when watching a Roller Derby matchup at the Chicago Coliseum.  After a tryout, she would soon join a National Roller Derby League team.

 

Her first team would be the San Francisco Bay Bombers in 1959, the team's first league season in the NRDL.  She would skate with the team briefly and would get a feel what a Championship Game was like.

 

In 1960, she was a big part of the first Bombers championship.  Judy would receive NRDL Rookie Of The Year honors.

 

In July 1961, Sowinski was sent to the New York Chiefs in exchange for Ann Bauer during a series that the Bombers and Chiefs were skating in at the time.  Bauer, a veteran, would finish her career with the Bombers and would retire after the 1965 season.  In the meantime, Sowinski was just getting started.

 

After being on two more teams in the 1961 season with the Los Angeles Braves and the Honolulu Hawaiians, Sowinski made a major move after the season.

 

Judy, while still on the Bombers, was promised a trip to Hawaii when the team was to travel there.  At the very last moment prior to the trip, Sowinski was swapped for another skater.  This led to a future move. 

 

A rival league, Roller Games or the National Skating Derby (if one prefers) was being formed. Judy would become part of a strong Los Angeles Thunderbirds team for the next few years.  Seeing a couple of videos, she was a strong presence with the team.

 

What this blogger didn't know until a couple of years ago, was that she would be loaned out to other teams.  When I saw her on television for the first time, she was a huge part of the Chicago Hawks in 1965.  She did some skating with the Hawaiian Warriors that season, another NSD team that was fairly new at the time.

 

Near the end of the 1968 season, she would become the women's captain of the Chicago Hawks.  During the 1969 season, she would become women's captain of the New York Bombers.  The NY Bombers were a strong force that season.  They nearly knocked off the T-Birds in that season's championship game.

 

After four seasons with the Bombers, Judy would return for NSDs final season with the T-Birds.  She would remain with the T-Birds when the International Skating Conference was formed.  Eventually, she became captain of the T-Birds.  Late in 1974. she moved on to the Philadelphia (Eastern) Warriors and would captain the team there.

 

Moving forward, after several more years in various leagues, in 2005, she became a coach and head trainer for the Penn Jersey She Devils, a team that was part of the Penn Jersey Roller Derby League.  Judy and Arnold "Skip" Schoen were recruited by Ken Sikes and Greg Spencer, co-owners of the league.  Judy would continue to give her time to something she loved up until her death in 2011.

 

There are several things I remember about Judy that will share here.

 

I remembered vividly the rivalry with the Eastern Warriors, and especially with Warriors' captain, Judy Arnold.  Thanks to UHF television at the time in the San Francisco Bay Area, this was possible!  The games with the NY Bombers and Warriors were epic and the battles with Sowinski and Arnold.  They were classics and I still remember watching them today!

 

Second, this may be corny, but Sowinski had a nice part in the movie, Kansas City Bomber.  The movie was good in my opinion.  Seeing some stars such as Sowinski, Ronnie Rains, Coleen Murrell and others, it was a change of pace for this fan.

 

Judy Sowinski deserves all the accolades and even more from this fan.  Undoubtedly, in my era, she was the best "red shirt" skater I saw overall.