Former rodeo stars still working the rodeo scene

Can you imagine Joe Namath and his pantyhose giving players water bottles during the Super Bowl?

How ’bout Michael Jordan mopping sweat under a hoop in an NBA championship game?

Here’s a better one: Tiger Woods caddying or hushing the crowd at the U.S. Open after he missed the cut?

You ain’t ever goin’ to see ball-and-stick primadonnas resort to physical labor to get near the action after they’ve set out for pasture in their senior years.

But at the NFR, there are gold-buckle winners and ProRodeo Hall of Famers workin’ just to be part of the greatest rodeo on Earth or any other planet for that matter.

Take ol’ Dean Oliver. You know how the 82-year-old spends all 10 nights of the Finals and has for decades?

He pulls cables for the TV crew. He probably don’t make much more than 50 bucks or so a night, but ol’ Dean always was smart with the money he won while winning rodeos and he invested pretty darn good.

Oliver is there to help the camera guy get those winners’ interviews each night. Dean’s right next to the dirt and sneaks a look at the action whenever he can.

He says it gives him “something to do when I’m here and it helps pay my way.”

Gentleman Dean, that’s what ol’ Buck calls him, got his first of eight gold buckles in 1956 in calf roping when it was called calf roping and not today’s politically correct tie-down roping.

Those eight calf roping titles are still a record. He added all-around golds from ’63 to ’65. 

Gary Laffew, the California kid who won the bull riding world title in 1970, has helped pull cable and now hosts “Gary Leffew’s Legendary Buck’n Ball” at the Gold Coast from 9 each night to, as he says, “whenever.” 

Hollywood Gary told me he was a cable puller “just to be down there in the mix of it, where I can get (poop) thrown on me from the bulls.” Bulls have a certain smell to them.

“It’s a privilege just to be able to be down there. You’re just right there next to the action. It’s just being in the mix.

“I don’t feel comfortable up in the stands. I have plenty of friends with booths (suites) and tickets are no problem. I just like being down there.”

Another old dude in the arena is Kelly Wardell, who qualified for the NFR four times in bareback riding before a hip injury stopped his ridin’. He’s now into mixed martial arts and won his only fight. Guess humans ain’t as tough as horses and no horses would tap out from one of Kelly’s rear-naked chokes.

And a guy who looks like he walked out of an old Marlboro commercial, Benny Reynolds, 75, mans the exit gate at the end of the arena.

Benny won the 1958 top rookie award from the RCA. That’s not the folks that made TVs but the precursor to the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Benny is the 1961 all-around world champ, and in 1993 he got into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame.