Songfacts®:

• As Croce explained on his live album The Final Tour, "Roller Derby Queen" is a song about a woman Jim met doing a gig at a local country and western bar. As they sat and drank together, he came to find out she used to be in the roller derby and that her husband was a state trooper. He described her as being about 400 pounds, saying, "Every time I watched her clap, I could see the fat on her arm jiggling back and forth. It was a beautiful sight." He also pointed out her penchant for hair spray, and how he would see her toting cans of Spray Net back from the supermarket. Croce also claimed that he wouldn't play the song locally, as her husband could "really mess up a nice day."
  
  Croce often made up elaborate stories in his songs that were based on real - but often eccentric - people (see "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown"). >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Pete - Pleasant Mount, PA