Life Experiences: Roller Derby Prelude

Back In the Day
I have vivid memories of watching Roller Derby on television many years ago. The teams had funny names, themes, and a great deal of trash-talking and hitting was going on. The show was on TNT, or whatever Spike was before it became Spike, and was on a late hour on an unfavorable day.
I've always had a love of the off-kilter sports. I'd love cricket if it wasn't so quintessentially British and impenetrable to the average Uh-Mericun mind. So I wanted this new exciting thing to succeed.
Then I paid attention to the game. I noticed how some runs were crazily improbable. A team gaining a 10 point lead, only to lose 10 points in a single run? And that elaborate bit of skating-gymnastics seems so improbable! How did it work? Then it dawned on me; the bouts were staged. Maybe not all of them, but enough to taint the experience. Like WWF years ago, and dodge-ball years later, off-kilter sports in their early iterations must go through a deal of pomp and circumstance before they come into their own. To pull viewers, high drama must replace solid fundamentals. American Gladiators did the same thing.
This sort of betrayal of gamesmanship breaks my heart. Professional wrestling is one thing (and I'm not condemning it; it's a fine bit of theatrics and athletic demonstration, but not what I'd call a sport), but you can't present something you're calling a legitimate sport and a dramatic piece with a known outcome in the same gesture. Give me one or the other, don't tart up one to look like something it's not.

Where The Wind Comes Sweepin'
I'm from Oklahoma. Roller Derby is pretty popular in Oklahoma, as popular as it is anywhere I think. And yet, 24 years living there, I never did go to a match. My friends went a couple times, but I never did go with them. It was a time of my life where sitting in and moping seemed more reasonable than drinking cheap beer and watching ladies hit other ladies at high speed. Christ, to be young again!

Cut To the Chase

I'm 27, I'm living on my own in Boston, I have a car, a job, and the power to make my own decisions. And Roller Derby is "The fastest growing sport around," and even though "Around" technically means the 50 ft. circle around the Shriners Auditorium, it is still accessible to a guy like me. So finally, after a long time coming, I went to see a 2 bout lineup of Roller Derby. And it was absolutely nothing like I envisioned all those years ago.