Trends come and go, but skating rinks keep going around and around.
by David McCrosky
Perched high above the road on a stretch of Chapman Highway in South Knoxville sits a large, weathered roller skate. The paint is chipped, the letters faded, worn by several years of rain, snow and whatever else the indecisive East Tennessee weather gods have thrown at it. It's a curious, almost inviting sign, reflecting memories of childhood skating birthday parties and Sunday afternoon church youth group outings.
About 80 yards past the sign stands the Tennessee Valley Skating Center. At first glance the building looks more like a small warehouse or some sort of out-of-place club than a skating facility. Only the towering roller skate gives the building away.
It's a Tuesday night and inside about 40 mostly middle-school-age kids whiz around on the maple-floored rink. A couple wear inline skates but most have on traditional, four-wheeled skates, known as quads. The rink is positioned in the center of the floor, surrounded by an orange, white and brown concrete wall. Off to the right is a concessions area with tables where three moms sit talking, patiently waiting on their children to get their fill. Off to the left, wooden bleacher seats line the rink wall. The wall behind the bleachers opens up to reveal three party rooms. Farther off are a handful of video game machines, an air hockey table and a foosball tables, all untouched.
Another wall is lined with photographs of dozens of roller skating champions, most dating back to the '60s and '70s. Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It" thumps over the speakers, as kids prance their way around the rink, shaking their hips to the beat. The room is dark, with a disco ball, strands of Christmas lights and several colorful, basketball-sized bulbs providing luminescence. The carpet underfoot is a worn beige, with a collection of black streaks from years of toe-braking. Really, the only thing striking about this center, and the handful like it scattered around East Tennessee, is that it is still here. Trendy or not, the traditional skating rink lives on.
Bobby Adkins has been the manager of the Tennessee Valley Skating Center for 14 years, half the rink's life span. He was the assistant manager before that. Opened by his mother and late father in March of 1974, the South Knoxville rink is the only family-owned and -operated one in the Knoxville area. Adkins has seen the trends rise and fall, from the boom in skating popularity in the late '70s and early '80s to the rise of inline skating in the '90s. Now, he says, the trend is jam skating, or dancing on skates.
"Like everything else, it goes back and forth," Adkins says. "The jam skating seems to be more popular now, where artistic skating used to be. Jam skating has been around for a while but just lately it seems there's been an interest in it."
The trend is reflected in the music you'll hear on any given night. There's a good deal of rap and R & B, mostly music the kids already know and enjoy.
"We play basically the top 40 music that the kids hear on the radio that has a good beat and that doesn't have swearing in it," Adkins says. "We play music that the kids can bounce to and dance to while they're skating."
Adkins says a big part of the skating business is parties. Each year his facility hosts 300-350 such events. Most are birthdays but there are also church functions, as well as banquets for sports teams, fraternities, sororities, and other groups. And while many of the rink's patrons are young teenagers, Adkins says skating is for anyone.
"It's all ages," he says. "As young as 2-3 years old and then we have our senior coffee club on Tuesday morning that are up in their 80s."
But for Adkins, himself a former competitive skater, he mostly enjoys working with the kids.
"I taught skating from '77 to '92. I enjoy giving the kids in South Knoxville a chance to do something fun. There isn't a whole lot to do in South Knoxville. Everybody seems to either want to go West or North."
The interior of West Knoxville's Roll Arena is remarkably similar to that of the Tennessee Valley Skating Center, from the wooden rink to the R & B music to the video games no one seems to be playing. But there is one notable difference—a large play area with a slide and pit filled with plastic balls, like you'd see at any fast food restaurant. It's a nice touch, but no one is using it either. Evidently, people come to these places to skate.
Roll Arena is the first of two East Tennessee rinks owned by Perry Allen. The second is Oliver Springs' Tri-County Roller Arena. The Indiana-based Allen family opened its first rink in 1977 in Anderson, Indiana, before launching the two subsequent rinks farther south.
Mark Bickett has been manager here for six months. Bickett has seen his fair share of the skating business himself. Before coming to Knoxville he operated a rink in Maryville for two years. Before that, he owned a rink in Florida for three. In all, he's operated rinks for nine years. He acknowledges that skating is experiencing a resurgence in its popularity. But he doubts it will ever be as big as it was in the '80s.
"The '80s were the years to skate," he says. "Everybody skated then. It's not coming back. Back in the '80s there was skating on TV shows and in the movies. It would take a top star today, like Nelly, doing something with skating, to really put it back on the map."
Bickett says most of his customers are middle-school age. Seventy percent come on a weekly basis. He calls them "rink rats" and knows many of them by name. Churches and nostalgia-hungry adults also frequent the rink. "We get a lot of church groups in here," Bickett says. "Wednesday night is '80s night. That tends to get the older crowd out."
It doesn't take long for Bickett to start talking about competitive skating. He says the rink is home to a USACRS (United States Amateur Confederacy of Roller Skaters) team, the only one in the state. Over 40 skaters are on the team, ranging from ages 16 to 42. They compete in meets all across the country, as often as finances permit. Competition includes indoor and outdoor relay races, both short and long distance, at distances of 500 and 1000 meters.
One of these skaters is 16-year old Tim Beck. A competitive skater for four years, Beck says he helped start the speed team here. Recently he competed in Las Vegas, taking first in his age range, beating skaters from all over the country and even Colombia.
Another regular here is Walt Mitchell. Mitchell loves to skate and race competitively. But he's also here for the music. And for good reason—he's the DJ. Mitchell started skating when he was 16, four years ago.
"When I started out I watched this movie called Airborne," he says. "When I saw that movie I realized I had to be a skater. My mom went out and bought me some skates that day. I skated outdoors for a while. Then I had a friend that skated indoors and he asked me what I wanted to do careerwise, and I said I wanted to be a DJ." From there he started DJing at rinks in Athens and Cleveland, before coming to Knoxville.
Bickett says skating is a good thing to dos if you want a dance club experience with more of a family feel. "If you like top 40 music and '80s music and a good light show, come to a skating rink. It's a clean atmosphere. It's the closest thing you can get to a club without the alcohol."
Quentin Lawhorn has worked in the skating business for 25 years. Himself a skater since 1954, Lawhorn has worked at corporate-owned Skatetown USA's Fountain City location for the past 18 years. Prior to that he managed a West Knoxville rink and then Skatetown's Maryville location.
"Basically, it was all quad skates when we first started," Lawhorn says of the changes skating has undergone through the years. "Inline speed skating came along about '94 and it's just taken over the world. If you don't have an inline speed team you don't have much of a skating facility. I've been a coach of both artistic and speed skating, and the inline skates are much faster. The music has also changed from Top 40 to a mixture of R & B and hip hop."
Skatetown, like other local rinks, also capitalizes on parties, even closing its doors Wednesday and Thursday nights for private functions. Monday night is Christian music night, and is typically frequented by church groups. Tuesday night is ladies night, with women garnering free admission. Larger cities have everything from dance nights to gay nights. And while Knoxville area rinks haven't quite taken to such marketing initiatives, it's clear they're aiming at the broadest audience possible.
They're getting it, too. Take Malaysia for instance. A polite, bubbly little girl of five, she skates in laps around the rink, holding the side with one hand. Occasionally she falls, giggles and then picks herself back up again.
Lawhorn says certain age groups stop coming to his rink after a time, but that some of them come back. "Really at about 15 people start leaving and they don't come back as much," he says. "And then about at 19 or 20 they start bringing their young kids with them. It's something that grows on you."
Rod Simmons is one skater here on whom the past time has grown. The 24-year old East Knoxvillian doesn't skate that often. But it's clear he enjoys it when he does. He dances his way around the rink, twisting and turning to the music, smiling and laughing with every rotation.
"I've been skating since I was young," he says, slurping an Icee. "I come skating every now and then. It keeps depression down. You're not really thinking about anything when you're out there. You're just skating and having a good time."
And with that he's back onto the rink—skating and having a good time.
May 9, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 19
© 2002 Metro Pulse
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