Rodeo in America: Wranglers, Roughstock, and Paydirt

By Wayne S. Wooden

Book Overview

Rodeo in America celebrates a great national pastime and tradition. Taking the reader "behind the chutes," Wayne Wooden and Gavin Ehringer reveal the essential character of rodeo culture today and show why it retains such a strong hold on the American imagination.

As the authors detail, contemporary rodeo has evolved into a much publicized big-time phenomenon even as it strives to stay close to its fundamental cowboy roots. The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) now sanctions 750 to 800 annual rodeos worth more than $22 million in prize money, attended by nearly 20 million spectators, and watched by millions more on ESPN and TNN. The National Finals Rodeo (NFR) alone offers more than $2 million in prize money and is attended by 170,000 spectators every December in Las Vegas.

Filled with telling anecdotes and insightful observations, the authors highlight rodeo's glamour and glory, hazards and hardships, while clarifying its many dimensions as sport, profession, business, community event, family tradition, and pop cultural icon. Bareback and bull riders, calf ropers and steer wrestlers, barrel racers and saddle bronc busters, bullfighters and arena clowns, stock breeders and local organizers, judges and journalists, the famous and aspiring, winners and losers--all are given their due in a work that reflects the enormous allure and demands of rodeo life.

Based on research and interviews conducted at the National Finals, as well as at rodeos large and small in San Francisco, Denver, Houston, Cheyenne, Calgary, Dodge City, Pendleton, and Prescott, among many others, Rodeo in America provides an entertaining and highly readable guide for aficionados and novices alike.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0700609652
• ISBN13: 9780700609659
• Release Date: November 1996
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Length: 310 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

The true rodeo book

I just recently dicovered this book and boy was I surprised. Personally, I found this book very helpful for the fact that I am a bullrider myself and found the information within it's pages very useful and insightful. It explains the origins of rodeo to the very way to play the game! With in-depth pages on Saddle Bronc Riding, Bareback Riding, Bullriding, Barrel-Racing, and almost every other rodeo event, I don't think you'll find a clearer perspective on rodeo unless you started riding! Please take it from me, for the best book on rodeo, look to "Rodeo In America"

An Overview from the Inside

Personal quotes from current and former rodeo participants enliven this look at one of America's oldest sports. Using the results of a questionnaire, you learn how they think of their lives and their jobs. The authors delve into the good and bad of rodeo, from the financial cost to the medical woes, from the exclusion of women to the changes in the sport, from rodeo history to its possible future. If you're interested in rodeo, you should get this book....