Sammy Skobel

Samuel "Sammy" Skobel (April 26, 1926 – June 9, 2018) was an American roller derby skater. Legally blind, he was a derby star who was voted most valuable player in the league three times and inducted to the Roller Derby Hall of Fame in 1953. Skobel also held the world record for the fastest mile skated on a banked track. After his retirement from skating, Skobel co-founded the American Blind Skiing Foundation.

Early life

Samuel Skobel was born April 26, 1926, the son of Russian immigrants.

An infection with scarlet fever at age four left him legally blind, with less than ten percent of his vision remaining. At five years old, he build a shoeshine box out of wooden crates from his family's store on Maxwell Street, which he used to shine the shoes of police officers for 2 cents.

He attended Crane Technical High School. Skobel was active in several sports as a teenager, including pole vaulting, high jumping, and baseball. A track star in high school, he ran a 4:22 mile and was offered full scholarships to three universities, but those offers were rescinded when the schools learned he was legally blind.

He had a hard time finding and maintaining a job after graduating from high school; he was denied a job in an electronics factory and got fired from a job repairing innertubes after just a few hours. He was one of the first seven people added to the original Roller Derby Hall of Fame when he was inducted in 1953. In 1958 Skobel set a world record fastest mile on a banked track, skating the mile in 2 minutes and 36 seconds. In 1971 Skobel founded the American Blind Skiing Foundation, along with his wife and three other Mount Prospect residents. He also traveled as a motivational speaker, giving talks on "Creating a Positive Attitude for Life." In 1982, Skobel collaborated with freelance writer Joyce Buck McDonald to write his autobiography, titled Semka. The jacket described the book as the "story of a determined young blind man from his boyhood in Chicago's Maxwell Street to a professional athletic career, setting a world speed skating record."

Skobel was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in his late 80s. He died at age 92 in his home in Mount Prospect on June 9, 2018.