She's into sports?

Vintage 50's Roller Derby Ladies

Anyone who knows me personally would never have figured me for a sporty gal.  But there was a time in my life when I lived for sports; or rather two very specific sports.  The type of unconventional sports for girls, kids or people in south Mississippi at the time;  Speed Skating & Diving/Swimming.

I wanted to be a speed skater before Apolo Ohno even started training full time; but Quad skating, not ice.  I would have gone out for ice had I not lived in a sub tropical climate & ice sports had been readily available to me.  I might have been training to be a Hockey super star.

However, I quickly realized that my need for wrecklessness outweighed my need for speed.  I saw a picture once, of women in a time period I've never known (refer to left) & read the words,   'Roller Derby' and that's what I knew I should train for.

I'm the most enthusiastic person in the group - what can I say,
I lived to SKATE!

Ah, Roller Derby.  Tough girls skating rough; a take no prisoners game.  I was hooked.  Apparently not every little girls dream in my area; I seemed to be the only one who had dreams of becoming a Super Star Roller Skater/Roller Derby Queen.

During the years of 8 - 12, I was a skate junkie. I would make my mother drop me off when the roller rink opened in the mornings and pick me up when they closed in the evenings.  It was the late 80's and the DJ's played the same stuff.  "It's Your Birthday" by The Beetles, "Achey Breaky Heart" by Billy Ray Cyrus, & "Blaze of Glory" by Bon Jovi.

I'll admit I was really only happy with "Blaze of Glory"; truth be told, the song seemed to turn me into some sort of roller skating wild west outlaw.  I would fly around the rink, singing the song and pretending to shoot people.  


But, wild west happiness aside, if I wanted appropriate skate music to train by, I'd have to take matters into my own hands.  I'd troop up to the DJ booth & request new wave, punk, & disco hits from their vinyl arsenal.

Not proper speed skate stance, but a girls gotta get
the competition out of the way.

As part of my practice for super skate stardom, I'd skate alone.  While other girls my age were skating in groups talking with their pals like they were on some sort of Sunday afternoon promenade, I was seeing how fast I could go and pushing opponents out of the way.


The faster I flew, the happier I felt.  The only thing more fun than skating at top quad speeds (and of course, pretending to be a wild west outlaw) were slamming into the walls to stop.  I know what you're thinking.  I would think it too having read this far, but I was not one of those annoying kids.  Everyone actually liked me.  People wanted to skate with me, they didn't find me threatening, they just let me do my own thing.


Which leads me to Super Skating Stardom, which I was definitely working towards; awesome quad skate tricks. In my day, the older, cooler kids would be in the middle of the rink practicing all their mad skate skillz.  I thought they were awesome, this is something I had to partake in.


At first, being teenagers, they kept telling me to stop bothering them and to go away.  But when they saw that I could hold my own & wasn't giving up or going away, they just ignored me... until I could do the moves too.  Some of the older guys were so impressed they told me that I was really good and would let me skate with them after everyone was ready to take their tricks around the rink.

Skate Super Star practice was really hard work.

But, as the years went on, fewer teenagers came to the roller rink.  I'd still practice my moves & make up new one's all alone in the center, but it was losing its grandeur.  Also things were changing at the rink.  They were going for a more safe, boring approach to skating.  I spent more time off the rink than on it.

Thus, I ended my skating dreams.  But, I wasn't finished with sports yet...

I could do this right?

I had always been big on swimming.  There was a local pool we'd frequent.  I kept seeing everyone swimming in the deep end I just couldn't stand it.  At a year and a half, I was so over paddling between my parents having them coo over how well I was doing.  I really wanted to just swim in the deep end and dive.

I wouldn't stop screaming one day we were there, and I kept tottering over to the edge of the deep end to jump in.  On this day, mom said, "Fine." and let me jump in.  The lifeguard was freaking out.  Mom's response was, "No.  If she wants to live she'll learn to swim."  I immediately popped back up to the surface and was happily paddling around in the deep end, my true home.  I was finally free and there was no going back.

From that young age, lifeguards didn't really like me; I scared them.  As an infant toddler with new found freedom, I very much resembled a penguin toddering towards the water as fast as I could, with my arms down.  Before a lifeguard could blow their whistle from anxiety, I'd dive in straight towards the bottom, arc upwards and burst through the surface.  My parents were not always watching me, knowing I was a natural in the water.  It came to a point where my mother had to inform every new lifeguard in my earliest years, that I was perfectly fit to swim in the deep end.

As I grew older, I abandoned my penguin like diving for fish movements and paddling around to practicing speeds and swimming techniques as well as diving formations.  I could also be seen pretending to be Ariel, from The Little Mermaid, but mostly I trained.

Passed the swimming test with
flying colours ever year at Girl
Scout camp.  Oh yeah...

Around this same time my dad took up Scuba Diving with my brother.  I wanted to be included, more than anything I wanted to Scuba Dive.  I wanted it so bad, I could taste it! I was too young to take the classes and one day I found out why.  Dad would test out his equipment at the pool.  He relented to my begging on one particular day and hooked me up.  I sank like a rock.  I was devastated.  I knew somehow I had to do this.

Then I read about this thing called Free Diving, where you train your lungs to hold breath so you can stay underwater for record times without coming up for air.  I knew this was for me and started training right away!

I'd train at the pool by holding onto the sides of the pool and keeping myself under.  I'd practice at home in the bath tub.  I'm no Peter Colat (Swiss Free Diver who has a record of almost 20 minutes!), but by the time I had finished training I could stay under for 5 minutes and 3 seconds.  I was 10.

Didn't help much with the whole dive excursions as dad gave it up, so I settled for using it anytime I had a chance to be in water.  But, when I was 13, they closed the pool.  I didn't keep up my record or improve on it in the tub and soon I found I'd lost all my training.  I'm thinking about training again on this one.