Women of the Wheel: Joan Weston

Joan Weston (1935-1996) was a California-born roller-derby athlete. She is most known for being one of the highest-paid female athlete in the 1960s, and by her nicknames: “The Blonde Bomber,” the “Golden Girl,” and “the Roller Derby Queen.”

For Further Reading: 

• The Lives They Lived: Joanie Weston; The Blond Bomber
• Joanie Weston, 62, a Big Star In the World of Roller Derbies
• Roller Derby Superstar, Joan Weston, Interviewed by Tom Chasuk 1987
• Weston Leaves Painful Legacy Roller Derby Queen’s Life Ended By Rare Brain Disease

This month, we’re talking about Women of the Wheel – icons who turned motion into momentum and spun their legacies on spokes, skates and potter’s wheels. These women harnessed the power of the axle, pushing their crafts and professions forward through their works and lives.

History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.

Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.

Womanica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Sara Schleede, Paloma Moreno Jimenez, Luci Jones, Abbey Delk, Adrien Behn, Alyia Yates, Vanessa Handy, Melia Agudelo, and Joia Putnoi. Special thanks to Shira Atkins.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello from Wonder Media Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this
is Wamanica. This month, we're talking about women of the
wheel icons, who turned motion into momentum and spun their
legacies on spokes, skates, and Potter's wheels. These women harnessed
the power of the axle, pushing their crafts and professions
forward through their works and lives. The year is nineteen

(00:25):
thirty five, and twenty thousand people have crowded into an
arena to watch pairs of skaters race around a flat track.
It's the first roller derby game in Chicago. The same year,
in the Golden State of California, a roller Derby star
is born. Please welcome Joan Weston. Joan was largely raised

(00:50):
by her maternal grandparents in Downey, California, after her parents
separated when she was very young. Her grandparents heavily influenced
her interests. When Joan was set seven or eight years old,
her grandfather took away her dolls and bought her a
baseball and glove, a basketball, and a bicycle. But Joan
found roller derby herself. While flipping through TV channels. One day,

(01:11):
she saw a roller derby game and thought to herself, Gee,
that looks like fun. I think I could do that soon.
Joan wasn't just looking for matches to watch on TV.
By the time she was a teenager, she was scooping
up discount derby tickets from local grocery stores. By that point,
she decided she wanted to try the sport for herself.

(01:34):
As luck would have it, a friend of Jones was
a groundskeeper at the Rose Bowl, where the derby pros
trained on summer mornings. He'd let Joan and another friend
into the venue to skate. When the skaters arrived with
their coaches, the girls would hide up in the bleachers
until training was done. Then they'd come back down and
skate some more. A natural athlete, Joan played softball at

(01:55):
Mount Saint Mary's College in Los Angeles. She once scored
eight home runs in a single college game, stopping only
when the nuns warned they'd excommunicate her from the team
if she dared hit a ninth homer. There weren't many
pro options for women when Joan was in her athletic prime,
but there was the roller derby. When she started out,

(02:15):
Joan made all the usual beginner mistakes. She struggled to
stay on the angled track and cross her feet correctly
at higher speeds. But by the time she first visited
a Derby training center in Los Angeles in nineteen fifty five,
Joan skated well enough that she caught the coach's eyes.
It took her four days to get picked up by
a pro team. Joan was a fixture in the league

(02:38):
for nineteen seasons. Her teams included the Brooklyn Red Devils,
the Los Angeles Braves, the New York Chiefs, and the
San Francisco Bay Bombers. Joan regularly skated for tens of
thousands of spectators at a time. She even had her
own fan club. At five foot ten with bleech blonde hair,
she was known as the Golden Girl, the Blonde Bomber,

(02:59):
and the Roller Derby Queen. The Roller Derby's travel schedule
was not for the faint of heart. Joan once put
ninety thousand miles on her car in a single year
just commuting to games. But living life on the road
was worth it to Joan, who loved the Derby and
made good money as one of its stars. She was
committed when she suffered serious injuries like a dislocated collarbone,

(03:23):
She took the time she needed to heal, and then
kept right on skating. Even when Derby owner Jerry Seltzer
shut the league down in nineteen seventy three and sold
off the name Roller Derby to other promoters, Joan stayed
devoted to her sport. In addition to skating, she took
up training and coaching younger skaters, and staged exhibition games
near her home in Hayward, California. She told an interviewer

(03:47):
in nineteen eighty seven, the game itself is too good
to let anything happen to it. It has to be here,
It absolutely has to be here. In nineteen ninety six,
when she was in her early sixties and long retired
from the Derby, Joan put on a helmet and jersey
and skated in an exhibition game. Less than a year later,
she was diagnosed with a rare brain disorder called kreutzfeld

(04:09):
Yakub disease. She died at the age of sixty two
at home, surrounded by her family. When the Roller Derby
Hall of Fame reopened in two thousand and four, Joan
Weston was posthumously inducted. Now it was official the Derby's
blonde Bomber was one of the greats. All month long,
we're talking about women of the Wheel. For more information,

(04:31):
find us on Facebook and Instagram at Wamanica Podcast special
thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co creator.
Talk to you tomorrow