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| Event: |
Skate-a-thon |
| Date: |
Sunday, August 10th, 2008, 5pm - 7pm |
| Location: |
Skate Deck
9700 19th Ave SE
Everett WA 98208
Map
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Unlike the historical skate-a-thons where you skake until you pass out or disqualified
because you become injured after 11 hours of skating, we're only going to be skating for
one hour, non-stop. The numbers of laps you skate in that hour are recorded as your "laps".
You want to do as many as possible. Sponsor a rollergirl or join us in our skating!
Click here to download your skate-a-thon form. Our
goal is to raise $6,000 towards interleague and travel team bouting.
What is a skate-a-thon?
In 1929, as the Great Depression began, a struggling film publicist named Leo Seltzer felt
that dance marathons were undermining attendance at his Oregon cinema chain, so he began
holding his own dance marathons. Hundreds of unemployed people participated, hoping to win
a $2,000 cash prize. Since dance marathons usually ended up with people lazily shuffling
around, he soon changed the events to "walkathons". The contests were emceed by celebrities
like Frankie Laine and Red Skelton, and grossed $6 million in three years.
In 1935, the novelty of walkathons wore off, but a roller skating fad arose, and Seltzer decided
to combine the two concepts as Transcontinental Roller Derby, an event more than a month long,
staged at the Chicago Coliseum. It was a simulation of a cross-country roller skating race in which
25 two-person teams circled a track thousands of times, skating 11½ hours a day, to cover 3,000
miles—the distance between Los Angeles and New York City.
Over the next two years, Seltzer took the Transcontinental Roller Derby on the road, holding similar
races throughout the U.S. with a portable track for daily crowds averaging 10,000 in number, who paid
10 to 25 cents admission. Occasionally, massive collisions and crashes occurred as skaters tried to
lap those who were ahead of them. Sportswriter Damon Runyon realized this was the most exciting part,
and encouraged Seltzer to tweak the game to maximize physical contact between the skaters and to
exaggerate hits and falls. Seltzer bristled, wanting to keep the sport legitimate, but agreed to the
experiment, which fans ended up loving. Over time, the spectacle evolved into a sport involving two
teams of five skaters, with a team scoring points when its members lapped members of the other team,
which is the basic premise of roller derby to this day. (wikipedia.com)
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Sponspor a Rollergirl!
Click the donate button below!
Please make sure when you review your donation that you enter the Skater's Name that your donation should be applied to.
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exciting "bouting" and "event" news from JCRG.
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