College’s Rodeo on the Ropes

One of the longest-running San Fernando Valley traditions has ridden into the sunset.

Pierce College has canceled what would have been its 41st Annual College Rodeo, a two-day intercollegiate competition that in past years drew 10,000 spectators to watch feats of riding and roping.

The Pierce rodeo, considered California’s largest college rodeo, was hobbled by funding troubles and declining interest in the school’s agricultural department, which sponsors the event.

Ron Wechsler, the Pierce College rodeo coach, said the campus decided earlier this year to cancel the rodeo because the agriculture department did not have the $30,000 needed to rent animals and the arena for the May competition.

“I usually gamble on the assumption that we could sell tickets and pay the bills,” he said. “But I didn’t have much to carry over from last year.”

Lagging ticket sales over the past three years have exhausted reserves, he said.

The news was a tough blow to students in Wechsler’s Intercollegiate Rodeo Class. About a half dozen of Pierce’s best riders had been expecting to compete--some, such as Miguel Padilla, to fulfill a lifelong dream.

“I’ve been coming to the rodeo here since I was a little kid,” said the 19-year-old roper. “And the first year I actually get to compete, it’s canceled.”

Pierce College President E. Bing Inocencio said he is not going to ride to the rodeo’s rescue.

The former New Yorker, who took control of the campus last spring, said any request for money to revive the rodeo next year would undergo strict scrutiny. “Anything that hurts student academic programs here, obviously, I’m not going to let happen,” he said.

The rodeo will be the second long-standing Pierce tradition to fall during Inocencio’s 10-month tenure. Last year, he canceled the school’s Fourth of July fireworks show because it was not making money.

“The reason they chose me to head this college is precisely because I can see this college with objectivity,” he said. “Traditions have to be supported by money and when money is disappearing you have to reexamine your traditions to see if it is hurting your essential goals: transfer readiness and job readiness.”

Cancellation of the rodeo will not affect rodeo classes or the school’s rodeo team, which will still compete at other schools.

But it will sever one of the Valley’s last links to America’s western heritage.

“This had a touch of how America really got started,” Wechsler said. “It’s a sport that came from a farm and a ranching type life and became a spectator sport. Everybody loves cowboys.” For Erin Brock, a 20-year-old Pierce student, the campus rodeo helped create pride in her school. “I’d like to represent my college at my college, and have people from California see what we’re all about,” she said.

Wechsler, who has organized the event for the past 28 years, said the rodeo will not return without financial help from the community and the college.

“I’d hate to think that this is the end,” he said.