The Associated Press Posted: 03/27/2009 11:50:17 AM PDT
JOSHUA TREE, Calif.-Bill Bogash, a pioneering Roller Derby star whose legendary skating career began in the Great Depression when he teamed up with his mother, has died. He was 92. Bogash, of Yucca Valley, died March 20 of respiratory failure March 20 at Hi-Desert Medical Center in nearby Joshua Tree, his wife, Georgia, told the Los Angeles Times. Dubbed "Mr. Roller Derby" and "Flash Bogash" by his fellow skaters, Bogash launched his 23-year skating career in 1935 at the age of 18, after attending the first Transcontinental Roller Derby race with his mother, Josephine, at the Chicago Coliseum. The event simulated a race from one end of the country to the other, with the distance traveled by two-person male-female teams illustrated on a large map of the United States that was kept on the wall. Over a six-week period, the skaters would cover about 100 miles a day in laps around the track. Josephine "Ma" Bogash was a diabetic who started roller-skating after her doctor advised her to exercise. She tried out for the Roller Derby and was offered a job but she told Derby officials she would only go on the road if they could take her son. The mother-son pair debuted in September 1935 at the second Transcontinental Roller Derby race, held in Kansas City. They proved a popular draw for crowds. "Billy Bogash was truly one of the greatest stars on the banked track," wrote Gary Powers, executive director and curator of the National Roller Derby Hall of Fame in New York City, on the hall's Web site. "He shaped and guided the sport like few other skaters and was instrumental in helping make Roller Derby the sensation it became during the late '40s and '50s, when the banked-track sport was the talk of the nation." "Ma" went on to become first woman skater inducted into the Roller Derby Hall of Fame in 1952. The sport evolved from the marathon-style event with two-person teams into a contest between two teams of five men and five women each. The different genders alternated on the track and crowds enjoyed the greater physical contact the reworked rules brought. Bill Bogash went on to lead several Roller Derby teams around the nation in the 1940s and coached the New York Chiefs to the first Roller Derby world championship at Madison Square Garden in New York in 1949. He also led the Los Angeles Braves in 1954 and became player representative for all skaters in negotiations with Derby management. After he retired in 1958, Bogash spent 24 years running a Los Angeles restaurant he had bought a few years earlier. Bogash was married three times. He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Georgia; his sons, Billy Jr. and Scott; his daughter, Sharon Guccione; three grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren----~----~------~----~------~--~--- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "World News Now Discussion List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/wnndl?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
