Skaters from the 1967 U.S.A.R.S.A. (the United States Amateur Roller Skating Association) competition.
 
Although I was an avid roller skater in my youth (as were both of my parents), I had no idea that the the United States National Amateur Skating Association (or U.S.N.A.S.A.) existed. Had I known, I would have immediately run away from home with my brown suede skates (with sweet orange wheels and stoppers) to pursue my dream of being an Olympic Champion roller skater. Regrets, I’ve had a few.
 

USARSA Senior Dance Champions of 1961, Jay & Janet Slaughter of Illinois.
 
In 1937, a Detroit-based group comprised of seventeen roller rink owners formed the RSROA (the Roller Skating Rink Operators Association). The creation of the RSROA didn’t go over that well with the Amateur Athletic Union (or AAU, a national amateur sports organization formed in 1888 who worked with amateur athletes all around the country, helping many on their way to the Olympic Games) as the membership of RSROA included the rink owners themselves and professional skaters. So, in 1939, the United States Amateur Roller Skating Association (USARSA) came to be and became a part of the the good-old AAU.

There were so many competitive categories within the USARSA, ranging from skate-dancing, novice, a curious sub-novice category, and a few for “tiny tots” that could skate (photos from which have been cataloged over at the site USA Roller Skaters), that I can only imagine the competitions themselves were long, grueling events not only for the skaters, but for the fans in attendance. The images in this post provide a fun and fascinating look back in time. Some remind me of the beautiful awkwardness that is the obligatory (and dreaded) senior prom photo. Your good-times roller skating flashback moment, begins now! 
 

Hugh Devore 3rd Place (the outfit is 1st place material all the way), USARSA Senior Men’s Singles, 1956.
 

USARSA Junior Dance contestants, 1953.
 
More after the jump…

Andy Warhol roller skating
 
If you keep up with my posts here at DM, you know I often put together cool photo-sets featuring famous people doing things that we all like to do like hitting the beach or lying in bed. This time around I’ve pulled together something fun for you to kill time with this Friday - images of people way cooler than us on roller skates.
 

Bettie Page and Gus the Gorilla roller skating, mid-1950s
 
Some of the images are from the wide variety of films with either roller skating themes or scenes in them such as Raquel Welch tearing it up on the derby track in the 1972 film, Kansas City Bomber. Others are from the late 70s and 80s when Roller Disco was all the rage. There’s even a few that go way back in time that I slipped in because they were just too cool not to share.

I’ve also included a video that features Dutch girl band, the Dolly Dots roller skating around in leotards lipsynching to their 1979 track, “(They Are) Rollerskating.” Because, like I said, roller skating RULES!
 

Grace Jones roller skating at Compo Beach, 1973
 

Judas Priest, 1981
 
Many more famous rollerskaters, after the jump…

 
In the summer of 1972, photographer Bill Yates, having completed a stint in the Navy, took a workshop that lasted one week with the legendary street life photographer Garry Winogrand. (Fun fact: When I want to make note of an upcoming band to catch, cookout to attend, or guest soon to take over my couch, I write the information in my 2015 Metropolitan Museum of Art Garry Winogrand wall calendar.) That session likely was ideal preparation for Yates’ first encounter with the  Sweetheart Roller Skating Rink in a rural section of Hillsborough County known Six Mile Creek, east of downtown Tampa.

“I had just purchased a medium-format, twin-lens camera, and, as usual, I was out riding around looking for something to shoot,” Yates remembers. Having spotted the Sweetheart, Yates approached the proprietor and asked whether he could shoot it, only to receive the following reply: “Sure, but if you want some good ones, come back tonight—this place will be jumpin’.” 

Yates learned soon enough how right that man was. He showed up with his Mamiya C330 and a Honeywell Strobonar flash and shot all eight rolls of the Tri-X 220 black-and-white film he had brought. Later, he stapled them to the wooden walls of the rink, so that his subjects, most of them cocksure teenagers and exuberant children, could see themselves in action. Seeing the pics decreased their innate suspicion that Yates was interested in catching them out, and soon enough the young roller skaters were mugging it up in front of his camera. “All of a sudden, I was their newest best friend,” says Yates.

Curiously, his Sweetheart photographs were enough to gain Yates admission to the Rhode Island School of Design, where—regrettably—he was encouraged to leave such playful documentary shots behind and “start from scratch.” Only recently, as he entered his sixties, did Yates think to return to those old pictures and present them as a show.

The exhibition “Bill Yates: Sweetheart Roller Skating Rink” starts October 3 at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. Be sure to read Chuck Reece’s compelling article about the Sweetheart photographs at Bitter Southerner.

Click on the photographs to see a larger version.
 

 

 
Many more pics of the fun at the Sweetheart after the jump…