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Bay City Bombers
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Honoring
the past
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The Great Ann Calvello
Remembered
Ann Calvello web and pod casts:
Listen: Frank Deford's POD CAST on Ann Calvello - Click here
Ann Calvello's skating career spanned more decades than any other skater ever.
As a young speed skater, derby promoters spotted her and placed the ingénue onto the leagues home team.
As an attractive stand out, Ann colored her hair blonde, and became the first blonde bomber in the sports history.
When a skater named Joan Weston came into her skating prime and management replaced the beloved Ann with Joan. All hell broke loose. Joan took the reigns as the new home team favorite. Ann skated the visiting teams. She learned to be hated.
This management move created the biggest rivalry the sport ever experienced. The classic photo above caught the classic grudge with one camera's click.
The photo was featured on posters and appeared in yearbooks for seasons to come. It depicted the sports competitive image and epitomized the competition between Joan, the blonde bomber and Ann, that bully with the wild hair, loud mouth and crazy cloths. The photo attracted millions of new fans to the game of roller derby.
As Ann's derby career wheeled ahead at a dizzying speed, her antics grew more histrionic. Her hair changed weekly and every major Holiday, she appeared with another hair style that no one, not even the highest paid Hollywood stylists could have invented.
Ann invented an on track character that was decades ahead of the times.
The battle for banked track supremacy between Joan and Ann became legendary.
The rivalry represented a grandiose dose of good versus evil. Every game and period of each Calvello bout, the fans saw Calvello taunt the home team. Tension in the auditorium built to a boiling point. Calvello's mayhem continued right up to the last minute of the girls last skating period.
That was when all hell broke out. Finally Ann took the dramatic blowoff, ending up knocked out by a power house upper cut; a haymaker. In one huge cathartic release, the fans rejoiced and couldn't wait to come to the next big bout. The bouts were real.
Ann bullied Joan's loyal teammates with illegal kicks and punches throughout the game that frustrated Joan. The fans hated Calvello and couldn't wait for her to get her comeupance near the very end of the last girls skating period.
As the ultimate derby-evil doer, Ann never missed an opportunity to kick a home team skater when she was down. She jabbed skaters after the jam, bonked them on the head, and pummeled them when the referee looked the other way.
Skaters often complained about how hard Calvello hit them. Ouch!
Calvello cheated and took so many cheap shots against home team players, fans would riot. Some fans threw items at her, others damaged her car and stalked her after games. Calvello was real.
Ann and Joan teamed up for some of the best on camera camp ever found in roller derby history. The two set emotion aside for these WRF on camera spots. They even shook one another hands before the words zinged back and forth.
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After Joan Weston passed away, Ann graciously paid respect to her long time rival.
Ann, Jan Vallow and Joan's husband, Nick Scopas are pictured above.
Ann, in real life had a heart of gold.
When it came to skating and entertaining millions, without a Joan there might not have been an Ann. Likewise without an Ann, there might not have been a Joan.
The two skaters were the roller derby.
Ann Calvello lives forever in our hearts and memories. Fans still search for old VHS/DVD bouts with her in full demonic action. She is part of the fabric of our American pop culture.
Ann Calvello is immortalized in a documentary titled DEMON OF THE DERBY.
She also is immortalized in CALVELLO UNLEASHED a documentary produced by the ARDL.
Don't miss this published tribute to the derby written by Jim Fitzpatrick. A photo journal spanning six decades with the games greatest players. Inside are rare photos of Ann Calvello, who also wrote the forward.
