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rodeo roundup
Keith Martin with
Outhier and AC’s
Kendra Santos. |
More Cowboy Than Most
By Kendra Santos
Buckle up & hold fast - it's the greatest show on dirt. Only an elite few excel at both ends of the Arena
The concept of the Professional Rodeo
Cowboys Association’s Linderman
Award intrigues me. It honors competitors
who win not just in roughstock
events, but in timed events as well—a rare
accomplishment as rodeo competition
trends toward single-event specialists.
I had the honor of presenting the 2007
Linderman Award buckle to Mike Outhier
at the 2008 San Antonio Stock Show and
Rodeo in February. The recipient must
win at least $1,000 in at least three different
events, including one or more from
each end of the arena. It’s awarded in
memory of late World Champion All-
Around Cowboy Bill Linderman.
“Guys who’ve won it in the past were
the toughest in the game,” Outhier said
with a grin when I spoke with him behind
the chutes at the event. “I wouldn’t dare
say I’m in the same class as them, but it’s a
real honor to be on that list.”
Outhier’s a Wrangler National Finals
Rodeo saddle bronc rider. His rodeo
repertoire also included bareback riding
and tie-down roping when he won his
first Linderman Award in 2004. This time
around, he rode broncs, roped calves, and
team roped.
Outhier mentions Phil Lyne and Ace
Berry as two of his Linderman-like role
models. We both presumed that they were
both past recipients but, as irony would
have it, two of the most impressive versatility
feats in rodeo history both occurred at the
1972 National Finals Rodeo. That’s the year
Lyne, who won three-straight Linderman Awards from 1970 to 1972 and another in
1976, won both the tie-down roping and bull
riding titles at the NFR. Berry topped the
bareback riding (for the second consecutive
year) and team roping events that year, but
Lyne took home the award.
Horse Sense
“Horses are the same from the day they're born to the day they
die. They are only changed by the people who train them.”
—Tom Smith |
Just how amazing is it to excel to that
degree at both ends of the arena? I called
in two of the sport’s all-time greats (and
two of my all-time favorite cowboys),
ProRodeo Hall of Famers Joe Beaver and
Ty Murray, to weigh in.
“What Phil Lyne was able to do at both
ends of the arena makes him the best allaround
cowboy of all time in my book,”
says timed-event sensation Beaver, who’s
won three world all-around crowns and
five tie-down titles.
We all admire those who can do things
we can’t, and Beaver’s the first to know
that his 230-pound stature would not suit
him in any of the roughstock events.
“Winning at both ends is a rare and amazing feat.”
“I’m not taking anything away from Ty
[who won a record seven world all-around
crowns at the roughstock end] or Trevor
[Brazile, the reigning and four–time world champion all-around cowboy in timedevents],
but winning at both ends is a
rare and amazing feat,” Beaver says.
Murray worked every event in his
youth, but at roughly half Beaver’s size, a
steer wrestling or tie-down roping career
just wasn’t in the cards. He never set out
to win the Linderman, in part because
trying to work both sets of chutes is, in
his words, “a logistical nightmare.”
Besides the ever-toughening level of
competition in every event, Murray flew
a lot while working the three roughstock
events. Having to haul horses would have
made it nearly impossible to compete at
world-title-contender speed.
“Back in the olden days, when guys
like Jim Shoulders and even Phil Lyne
were rodeoing, rodeo was a lot simpler
and a lot more fun because the cowboys
went to one rodeo town and stayed
there for the duration,” Murray says.
“It’s more of a rat race now, and with
all the trips you’d have to make back
and forth to work every event, you really
couldn’t do it at a world championship
level. My hat’s off to every guy
who’s ever won the Linderman. What
Phil Lyne did was unbelievable. It’s very
difficult to be world-class at both ends
of the arena.”
Linderman, winner of world all-around
championships in 1950 and ’53, also won
world bareback riding, steer wrestling,
and saddle bronc riding titles. He was the
PRCA-predecessor RCA’s president from
1951-57, and served as secretary/treasurer.
Linderman died in a 1965 plane crash on
the way from RCA headquarters in
Denver to Washington State. He was 45.
My dad happened by my house one
evening and, when he noticed how fascinated
I was by the legend of Bill
Linderman, he told me about a framed
check he’d once seen hanging in the former
Pig ‘n’ Whistle restaurant in
Denver years after Linderman’s death.
As the story has been passed along—
cowboy to cowboy—Linderman, a regular
there, stopped off to cash a check
on his way to the airport. When the barkeep
asked him to write his address on
the check, Linderman playfully wrote
“Heaven.” His plane crashed later that
day in Salt Lake City. It is said that he
emerged from the wreckage once, but
went back in to try and save fellow passengers.
He was never seen again.
Kendra Santos has been Rodeo Editor
for AC since the magazine’s founding in
1994. She lives with her husband and two
sons in Creston, Calif.
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