Leo Seltzer
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Leo Seltzer was the creator of the sport Roller Derby and was the founder of the original Roller Derby League in 1935. His son Jerry Seltzer took over the league in the early 1970's.
Born in Helena, Montana on April 9, 1903, Leo Seltzer created Roller Derby and promoted its first race in Chicago at the Chicago Coliseum on August 13, 1935. Prior to creating the banked track sport, Seltzer was in the motion picture distributing field with the Universal film company. This eventually led him to own a chain of movie theatres in the Northwest. In 1931, he staged the first commercial Walkathon in Denver with twenty-two more to follow.
He moved his family to Chicago in 1933 and began booking events into the Chicago Coliseum, a fortress-like structure at 15th & Wabash. Sometime in early 1935, Leo read an article in 'Literary Digest' magazine that said ninety-three percent of Americans roller skated at one time or another during their lives. Discussing the article at Ricketts, a restaurant in Chicago's Near North Side, with some of the regulars, Seltzer was challenged to come up with a sport utilizing roller skating participants.
Bicycle races and dance marathons were very popular at the time and Seltzer began jotting ideas onto the tablecloth, incorporating both of these popular entertainments with a roller skating theme. The name Roller Derby was copyrighted on July 14, 1935 (No. 336652) and a month later, twenty thousand spectators filled the Coliseum to see 'Colonel' Leo Seltzer's Transcontinental Roller Derby, a mythical marathon race from one end of the country to the other which incorporated both male and female participants on a banked track.
Seltzer's decision to use women was a double-edged sword for the newborn sport since it guaranteed a large female audience at a sporting event, but the presence of women athletes made the mainstream press view Roller Derby as a sideshow, not a legitimate sport. The premier race in Chicago was a tremendous success, but subsequent engagements throughout the country were not as successful and Seltzer's entire enterprise almost ended with a tragic bus crash in 1937 when twenty-two skaters died.
In December of 1937, sportswriter Damon Runyon saw the game in Miami, became enthralled, suggested a more structured game with more contact between the skaters and a new version of Roller Derby was created. Seltzer's game would constantly evolve and continue to have moderate growth, but it was not until November 29, 1948 when Roller Derby, broadcast on television from New York City's 69th Regiment Armory, captivated the nation. Roller Derby was finally the smash hit Leo Seltzer had always envisioned, although within a few short years, the sport was overexposed on TV, the brand new medium that had catapulted it to prominence.
With dwindling attendacne, Roller Derby left America to tour Europe in 1953, but returned the following year. Seltzer moved the headquarters to the West Coast, a few years before major league baseball would make the same move. Leo never lost his vision that the game would once again be embraced by the country, but by 1958, it was time for son Jerry to take over day-to-day operation of the family business. Jerry Seltzer, born June 3, 1932, once again took the sport to great heights by filming Roller Derby broadcasts, featuring the San Francisco Bay Bombers, which were shown on a network of 120 TV stations across the country. Roller Derby broadcasts beat all competition in most markets.
Derby's national tour became so successful that by 1969, the Bay Bombers were broken up into a San Francisco and Oakland team, two units, which filled arenas across the country from 1969 thru 1971, when a third unit was added. The original Roller Derby skated its last game on December 8, 1973 when Jerry sold the family business. Leo Seltzer lived to see his game once again break attendance records all over the country and become the darling of the mainstream press under Jerry's guardianship. Leo Seltzer died January 30, 1978 and was the first inductee into the Executive Wing of the National Roller Derby Hall of Fame in 2005 in Chicago during the 70th anniversary celebration of Derby's first race. Son Jerry was inducted into the National Roller Derby Hall of Fame at the same celebration.
Leo Seltzer had always wanted roller derby to be a legitimate sport and to be in the Olympics. His son Jerry said that with the recent grassroots movement of roller derby, including the WFTDA, he thinks roller derby can now be an Olympic sport[1].
