The rodeo can be a dangerous job for people like a bull rider, who have to hold on for more than eight seconds to have their score counted.
When the buzzer goes off at eight seconds, it reverberates throughout the entire arena, so loud you can feel it in your bones. If everything has gone well so far, the cowboy breathes a sigh of relief, but he can’t relax yet. While he may have successfully held on long enough to post a score, he now faces a different question: how does he get off a 2,000-pound bucking bull?
For over 78 years, Omaha has hosted a Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) rodeo event. Known today as the River City Rodeo, it’s one of the last stops on the PRCA’s regular season tour before the National Finals Rodeo, meaning these two nights can make or break a cowboy’s chance of competing in Las Vegas.
Starting in 1947 as the Aksarben Rodeo, pro rodeo in Omaha has gone through various iterations over the past 78 years. In 1982, the River City Roundup Festival was created, and the rodeo became a part of at the time. In 2003, the River City Roundup moved to the CHI Health Center and changed its name to the Pace Picante ProRodeo Challenge. At its peak in 2009, the River City Rodeo was the second-largest rodeo in the world behind the National Finals Rodeo. Local Omahans remember growing up with the rodeo around them.
“It was that little slice of time where the country came into the city. I have specific memories of seeing livestock being led down Center Street,” Mary Ann Tietjen, Ph.D., the senior director of the Success Center, said. “It was a time for us to really all come together as Nebraskans, and kind of cheer on the event. I think it was something that definitely brought us all together.”
In addition to the PRCA event, the rodeo hosts the High School Champions Challenge Rodeo. On the morning of Sept. 19, the best cowboys and cowgirls from high schools across the Midwest went out to compete for scholarship money, adding up to $5,000 in some events. The money isn’t limited to being used for traditional education; it can be utilized for anything that promotes the betterment of the cowboy, which could include roping, riding or trade school.
As a PRCA rodeo event, the River City Rodeo features all seven main rodeo events. These events include bareback bronc riding, steer wrestling, tie-down roping, saddle bronc riding, team roping, barrel racing and bull riding. Cowboys compete for money in these events, and the top 15 cowboys in the world — by earnings — in each category will proceed to the National Finals Rodeo. In bucking events such as bareback bronc, saddle bronc and bull riding, the cowboys must hang on for eight seconds for their ride to count.
Eight seconds seems like a minuscule amount of time, but it’s much harder than it seems. Of the 23 cowboys who competed in bull riding, only four riders managed to stay on for eight seconds. Even riders such as Wacey Schalla, the No. 2 cowboy in the world, were unable to hold on for the full eight seconds. However, on top of being a competition, rodeo is a performance. “The contestants are there to try to make money, but we’re also there to put on a show. We have to make sure that people are entertained,” rodeo clown Preston Broxton said.
Broxton, a rodeo clown from Louisiana, is an integral part of making sure this entertainment is delivered. Between cracking jokes with the announcers and keeping the audience entertained while transitioning between the events, Broxton and his team of bullfighters work in the seconds after a ride to get the cowboy to safety.
At its core, rodeo is a dangerous sport. Bulls and horses buck around in the arena, determined to get the cowboy off at any cost. Even after the ride, the animals may remain agitated.
Originally, the job of getting the bull away from the rider fell solely on the rodeo clown. In recent years, the job of rodeo clown has been split into two: the bullfighters who distract the bull, and the rodeo clown, or barrel man, who delivers comic relief. That isn’t to say that the barrel man doesn’t also face danger from the bulls.
“I used to get into the barrel and try to get the bull to charge me, let him throw me around, until one time a bull got in there with me and broke my back,” Broxton said.
Some of the people in the greatest danger are the cowboys themselves, often being violently flung from their animals and ending up right by their feet.
“First thing I try to do as soon as I hit the ground is get up and get out of there,” professional bull rider Carter Hanson said. A native of Alcester, South Dakota, 22-year-old Hanson came in fourth with a score of 65, riding Kingpin from Cervi Championship Rodeo.
From an outside perspective, rodeo seems like a crazy sport for crazy people. In all honesty, that isn’t too far off, but it has this way of hooking you in. It has the power to bring people from different backgrounds together, regardless of where they’re from.
“I didn’t grow up in rodeo. Probably didn’t go to two rodeos before I was 25 years old. And now I do, you know, 100, 100 plus performances a year,” Broxton said.
“If it’s a dream, chase it, just try hard. I mean, I didn’t grow up around all this and here I am riding pro bulls,” Hanson added.
Whether it’s a two-day PRCA event like River City Rodeo or a half-hour bull riding showcase in a small town in rural Nebraska, there’s always going to be something to see. Rodeo clowns like Broxton keep you there from start to finish and make sure that the show runs smoothly. Cowboys such as Hanson may only spend eight seconds on that bull, but those eight seconds contain more action and emotion than most people will see in their lives.
“Maybe you’ll go back to the rodeo, maybe you won’t, but if nothing else, you learned or you experienced something new,” Tietjen said, encouraging students to step out of their comfort zone.
“If you hear the word rodeo, go to it. Go see what it’s all about. Go enjoy yourself. Leave your troubles at the door. They’ll all be there when you leave, but you’ll feel a lot better, and maybe they won’t seem as heavy when you pick them back up,” Broxton added.