College Cowboys Wrangle In on New Lucrative Rodeo Circuit

They’re still roping and riding at the rodeo, but many clean-shaven cowboys competing in the professional sport these days are not wranglers or country boys. Instead, they come from a college scholarship program as often as a family ranch.

The loam hauled into the San Diego Sports Arena for the indoor rodeo this weekend is the same clay-balanced dirt used every year for the last 20 years at the annual event, but the cowboys arriving Friday weren’t the same roughnecks that used to lope in for a weekend of ridin’, drinkin’ and hell raisin’.

Now, as specialists who compete in one or two events, the competitors who get down and dirty in the arena fly or drive to as many as four rodeos in one weekend and earn as much as $100,000 a year.

“It’s still a rough and tumble sport, but no one socks the judge in the eye anymore,” said Cotton Rosser, vice president of Flying U Rodeos, the organization that has sponsored the event here for 21 years. “They used to come for a whole week, it was a gathering of the ranches. It was a festivity--have a few fights and drink.

“It’s a professional contest now. A different way of life.”

It sure is. Entrants sign up through a computerized headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., for all Professional Rodeo Cowboy Assn. rodeos, and the computer picks and assigns the bull and horse numbers once drawn from a hat.

The competition has become more intense over the years as the purses have gotten higher. The new generation of cowboys think of “rodeoing” as a lucrative career.

“The younger generation is a lot different. They got an attitude. They’re going to school for it,” said 57-year-old C.R. Jones, who wrestled steers for 35 years. “They’re trained athletes now. We started out green and learned the hard way.”

Street-smart Bobby Del Vecchio grew up getting “his nose into trouble” on the city streets of a Bronx ghetto. He saw his first bull at a New Jersey Cow Town rodeo at age 14 and hopped on for a ride.

Now a 29-year-old rodeo personality who has made $500,000 in six years, Del Vecchio speaks with a New Yorker’s rendition of a Texas drawl and swaggers with an arrogance only a Yankee filling cowboy boots and a custom-tailored western shirt can manage.

His specialty is bull riding and his image has won him endorsements and commercials for trucks, shirts and airlines.

“Not only do I ride bulls well, I’m an oddity,” he said. “I jumped hurdles in a sport dominated by Oklahomans. You don’t have to be a ranch-born-and-raised person to be a rodeo athlete.”

Announcers call Del Vecchio the Italian Stallion. He throws kisses to crowds peppered with screaming women, and he admits only one fear--losing.

He is married--”It’s nice to know somebody loves you when you are winning or losing”--and wears a trademark silver belt buckle the size of a small platter. Although he has won in regional competition, he has never won the World Championship--he’s been runner-up three times.

“Naturally, it’s disappointing, but I don’t have time to sit around and sulk,” he said. “Someone is right behind to take your place.”

As for injuries, his back was broken by an 1,800-pound bull a few years ago--and it cured his fear of getting hurt: “I figure God will never let anything that bad happen to me again.”

He plans to keep riding bulls until “I wake up in the morning and can’t do it.” Which he sees happening in about four years.

“I love to ride bulls. There is just that something about the actual competitive closeness with the animals. Bulls have personalities, they are like athletes, too. He wants to throw you off and I want to ride ‘im.”

Del Vecchio flew to San Diego from Alberta, Canada, to do radio and television spots, competed at the Sports Arena on Friday and will ride in two more California rodeos by Sunday night.

Jake Barnes, a 6-foot-3 team roper, lassoed 100 longhorn steers in 100 rodeos last year and won the World Championship. A 27-year-old, soft-spoken cowboy in elephant skin boots (they don’t tear as easily), Barnes learned to ride on his grandparents’ ranch in Phoenix. He dropped a rodeo scholarship and three years of agricultural studies at Eastern New Mexico University six years ago to become a professional. Last year he earned $99,000.

Roping in the afternoon competition Friday without an audience (tickets were sold for the two 8 p.m. sessions Friday and tonight only), Barnes said a crowd is incidental.

“It’s just a job. I’m in it for the money,” he said. “It is kinda like a sport, like playing basketball. I love to do it and make a living at it. I wouldn’t trade it for anything else--except maybe professional basketball.”

As for the championship, he hopes to win it four or five more times. “The main thing about rodeo, if you’re winning, there is nothing better,” he said.

It is not a salaried sport. Without winning, a cowboy doesn’t make a living. Like many cowboys on the rodeo circuit, Tommy Switzer’s yearly income fluctuates wildly. In three years his take went from $23,000 to $80,000 to $22,000.

A tall, 27-year-old steer wrestler from San Luis Obispo who began riding in rodeos as a teen-ager, he attended California Polytechnical University on a rodeo scholarship and competed in the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Assn. before entering the pro circuit.

“I’m going to stay in rodeo as long as I can,” Switzer said. “The money is getting really good. I want to make more than enough, I want to get cushy. That’s my goal.”

Switzer, who competes in about 110 indoor and outdoor rodeos in the United States and Canada each year, likes the travel--and the winning.

“I’m a free spirit. I’m my own boss as long as I’m winning,” he said. “It’s the worst when you’re cold. You have to try to ride through the tough times. There is no income when you go through a slump.”

Despite the invasion of the college cowboy, some traditions remain. Switzer travels with two other bulldogging cowboys to all the rodeos. They support each other when one is on a losing streak. “When I was a rookie, they carried me for a whole year,” he said.