Chapter One
Black and white, and the roar of the crowd
At thirteen, Judy Arnold was flipping through channels when a roller derby game appeared on a black-and-white television. Her first instinct was to turn it off — the sport looked violent and rough, and she wanted nothing to do with it.
Then she and some neighbourhood kids went down to the Armory in San Francisco to watch the Bay Bombers practise. She heard the skates. She watched the speed on that high, banked track. She was thirteen, and she was in love.
Her professional career began at sixteen with the Bay Bombers, and her first season brought Rookie of the Year. She travelled the country and the world — Japan, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo — and appeared on The Mike Douglas Show and on Philadelphia television. She was beautiful and tough as nails, with a tender heart, and people could not get enough of her.
Chapter Two
The noticeable hole
On the track for Kansas City Bomber, Judy wore a long brunette wig and skated Raquel Welch’s scenes. Off the track she watched the star between takes: the beauty, the talent, the fame — and something missing.
“I couldn’t get over that. I saw in Raquel this very successful woman who just wasn’t fulfilled.”
She was at her own peak, and she recognised the feeling. Around that time her friend and fellow skater Sally Vega told her plainly that she needed God. Judy began to search. It led her to a church in New Jersey, where she walked forward in hot pants and go-go boots.
“I knew immediately that this was what I had been missing — a relationship with my Creator. The relief, the forgiveness, and the wholeness that I felt was indescribable.”
Chapter Three
The decision that cost her everything — and gave her more
For eighteen months she kept skating: praising God, then clobbering an opponent. It didn’t sit well for long. In 1975 she told her manager she would leave the career she loved, and she never looked back.
She enrolled in Bible college, memorising scripture. She shared her testimony in the L.A. County Jail for women. She taught physical education in a Christian school. Her ministry took her onto the road, into churches across the United States, and it still does.
She still dons the uniform. She skates into a school hall and talks to teenagers about the choices facing them — sex, drugs, peer pressure, the temptation to live a double life — and tells them, from experience, that they can handle it. She speaks to women about bitterness, forgiveness, and letting go. She speaks to adults about healing and the freedom that only comes through Christ.
Chapter Four
Coming full circle
These days Judy attends roller derby reunions across the country. Once again she puts on her skates and her uniform — but this time she isn’t competing against a room full of skaters. She is standing in front of them, telling them what she found on the other side of walking away.
With friends Victoria Robbins and Nancy Foreit she founded Truth Ministries, whose most-requested workshop, “Roots,” teaches how to pull up bitterness and live in the peace of forgiveness. Her heart’s desire is simple: to spend her days sharing the fulfilment she has enjoyed since that decision in 1975.
