Urban Cowboy Alert : * The 150 students from nine colleges will compete in the other three Rs--ropin’, ridin’ and rasslin’--at the annual Pierce College rodeo.

Saddle up, buckaroos!

Git your hindquarters out to Pierce College’s 38th Intercolle giate Rodeo tonight and Satur day night--and make sure the rest of you shows up, too.

You’ll see 150 men and women representing Pierce and eight other colleges that excel in their own three Rs--ridin’, ropin’ and rasslin’--not to mention some of the finest bareback riders this side of Lady Godiva. And don’t be surprised if you happen to hear some of those animal-rights pickets, who showed up last year, scoff at bull-riding as sport, arguing that nobody asks the bulls if they want to play.

Look for an urban cowboy named Ron Wechsler, the rodeo’s longtime director, who stands ready to shoot from the lip.

“These animals are genetically bred for this sport,” Wechsler, a Pierce College associate professor of animal science, insists. “If, in fact, these animals didn’t enjoy what they’re doing, they wouldn’t do it.”

Just what is rodeo--a staple of the Old West--doing here in the suburban West Valley?

Well, as Wechsler puts it, rodeo is a tradition spanning four decades (save for three years during the 1980s when the event shut down for lack of liability insurance) at Pierce College, a two-year school with a proud agricultural heritage and grazing lands that seem starkly miscast amid the urban sprawl of America’s second-largest city.

Rodeo is growing, as Wechsler puts it, “by leaps and bounds,” thanks to the surging popularity of country music and line dancing. “And I think people are looking for good, clean, wholesome, family entertainment,” he adds.

What’s more, the professional rodeo circuit is glitzier than ever, with bigger prize money and Las Vegas replacing Oklahoma City as the site of the tour’s world series.

That, in turn, has helped swell the ranks of intercollegiate rodeo--which originated in 1948--to a sport that boasts more than 4,000 participants and 600 schools nationwide.

Competing with Pierce this weekend, for example, will be teams from Western schools such as Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Cal State Fresno, Stanford, UC Davis, Hartnell College (Salinas), Lassen College (Susanville), West Hills (Coalinga) and the University of Nevada-Reno.

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Two participants--Jennifer Clark, 20, and Robyn Bush, 23--are Pierce sophomores who ride their own horses (a Marysville contractor will provide all rodeo livestock such as bulls, goats and calves).

They’d like to cash in professionally on their sport someday if they can, but they say they’re focused on careers--Clark in nursing, Bush in veterinary medicine.

Clark laughs.

“Someday, I’ll call on Robyn to fix my horse,” she says, “and she can call me to fix her!”

Both concede that their rodeo stardom is one of the best-kept secrets on or off-campus.

“Usually, people’s first reaction is, ‘Oh?’ ” says Clark, who grew up in Thousand Oaks. “Then, they say, ‘Oh, cool!’ ”

“A lot of people don’t know there are college teams, high school teams and junior rodeo,” says Bush, from Deer Creek Canyon in Malibu.

Both say, too, that high school rodeo--complete with letterman jackets--is the rage in many Northern California communities.

And both contend they are all but impervious to rodeo’s potential for personal injury.

“It’s like driving your car every day,” Clark explains. “You know you could have an accident, but you don’t think about it. I mean, we could get hijacked at an automatic teller. . . .

“This is a lot of fun. We’ve made a lot of friends in rodeo all over California. Your teammates become like your family.”

A strong sense of family prevails each year, too, at Pierce College’s rodeo, which attracted more than 13,000 spectators last year to the traditional site--the school’s football stadium--to watch competitors rope calves, wrestle steers that can run 35 m.p.h., and ride bulls weighing as much as 2,400 pounds, “about as much as a Volkswagen,” Wechsler says, “but with more firepower.”

Many spectators had first attended with their parents 30-odd years ago--well before motor vehicles were brand-named Bronco and Mustang, before sports teams were nicknamed Bulls. Now, they bring their children and grandchildren.

“We’re talking generations of people in this Valley who’ve been coming to this rodeo all these years,” Wechsler says.

One of those early spectators in 1964--back when Wechsler himself rode bulls--couldn’t bear to watch.

She happened to be Wechsler’s mother.

“Afterward, she was white as a sheet,” Wechsler recalls. “She said she would never come to another rodeo as long as she lived.”

Not until a year ago--29 years later--did she work up the fortitude to return. This time she watched not from the seats but from the stadium floor.

“We put her right where the action is,” Wechsler says. “She stood right by the fence, where you get manure and stuff kicked all over you.

“She watched this whole show take place--and all she said afterward was ‘Wow! Down at this level, it’s really exciting!’ ”

WHERE AND WHEN

What: 38th Pierce College Intercollegiate Rodeo.

Location: Football stadium at Pierce College, 6201 Winnetka Ave., Woodland Hills.

Hours: 7:30 tonight, 7:30 p.m. Saturday (preceded by barbecue and country music by the Lobo Rangers, 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Saturday).

Price: $8 adults, $6 senior citizens, students and children. $16 per person for combination rodeo and barbecue ticket Saturday. Proceeds to benefit Pierce College’s agriculture program.

Call: (818) 719-6463.