Columnist Ron Kantowski: The only dirt in this sport is just cushion for a cowboy’s fall

Monday, Dec. 13, 2004 | 9:09 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

By now, the 46th Wrangler National Finals Rodeo has packed up and is heading back to Colorado Springs and other destinations in the red states and across the Canadian prairie. So the next foul odor you smell at the Thomas & Mack Center will be UNLV's half-court offense.

Its affront to the senses -- especially the olfactory one -- nothwithstanding, the NFR only seems to be getting bigger and better. Although to be honest, in that the buckle on my belt is only about an inch in diameter and doesn't look like the winner's trophy at Wimbledon, I couldn't tell you for sure about the better part.

This greenhorn grew up in a blue state, where you bet on horses instead of ride them. So my knowledge of what constitutes a high score is somewhat limited. I still think the best rides are like in the old cartoons, where Quick Draw McGraw gets dragged around the corral while Baba-Looey looks on helplessly.

But not even "Queeks Draw" can hold a candle to the high-falutin'ist cowboys of the National Finals.

My first exposure to the pro rodeo super bowl was in 1987, my first year with the Sun, when the low man on the office totem pole got saddled with covering it for all 10 days. It really wasn't the awful assignment that my colleagues made it out to be, primarily because most of the cowboys had interesting stories to tell and said "yes sir" and "no sir" and "thank-you sir" a lot in telling them. But I have to admit that by the fifth or sixth go-round, I was O-D'ing on country music and everybody in the crowd was starting to look like Merle Haggard or June Carter-Cash.

Contrast that to Sunday, championship day at the $5.1 million NFR, when most of the gold buckle battles in rodeo's seven disciplines were determined before yet another sold-out crowd at the T&M.

It was like going to a rock concert, only the bass player wore a black hat and the roadies dressed like Little Joe Cartwright. I haven't heard that many AC/DC records at that decibel level since trying to cram for a trig exam during my junior year in college.

I don't know who's responsible for the music choreography, but he or she deserves a gold star or belt buckle cast from the same precious metal. There's nothing like hearing the ominous opening strains of "Hells Bells" while a bull rider is getting strapped on to get one's spine tingling.

Besides the classic rock anthems that have replaced the cheesy orchestra ditties as the NFR soundtrack, the makeup of the rodeo audience also has changed.

While most of the cowboys still wear those classic fit Wranglers with the legs straighter than Sheriff Andy Taylor, the cowgirls sure have changed in appearance since the late 1980s. There were so many halter tops and bare-midriffs in the crowd I thought I had stumbled into a Harley-Davidson convention by mistake. Sturgis, S.D., should look so good.

Remember that gold buckle I wanted to give the music guy? At the risk of sounding too red-blooded, the guy running the in-house scoreboard camera should get two of them.

There weren't many lulls in the action, but when a saddle bronc rider landed on his keister and took a moment to see if his ribs were still in their proper places, the music guy would put on a ZZ Top tune and the guy on the scorecard camera would zoom in on some Shania Twain lookalike shaking her keister. Or maybe she was just looking for some Tush.

Greg Maddux says chicks did the long ball but based on the ones I saw dancing to the music Sunday, I think rodeo chicks would trade a 400-foot home run for an 8-second bull ride quicker than you can say Jack Daniel's. Or throw back a double shot of it.

If there's a fine line between sports and entertainment, the publicity-starved pro rodeo circuit seems to have crossed it by leaps and bounds. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm sure there was a time when mashed potatoes and gravy were served separately on Thanksgiving, too.

Critics of the sport say all those laser beams and pyrotechnics are just a a smoke screen to disguise that the NFR is a three-lettered abbreviation for cruelty to animals. I guess this city slicker doesn't really see where wrestling a steer is worse than hitting him over the head with a sledgehammer and turning him into flank steak, but hey, that's me.

If the PETA folks really wanted to make themselves useful, I'd suggest they obtain an injunction against Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey, who rode around the arena on the back of a spotted spaniel while pursuing a herd of what I think were small goats. A couple of times, the monkey slipped out of the "saddle" and nearly became rhesus pieces.

I guess the Rally Monkey needs to take work wherever he can find it.

While I enjoy a dog and pony show as much as the next guy, I think dog and monkey and goat show is where I have to draw the line. I also think the NFR announcers exaggerated just a bit when they called Whiplash "the world's most famous primate."

Good thing King Kong doesn't get ESPN2. He'd probably be hanging from the Stratosphere Tower as you are reading this.

But with the exception of the Ed Sullivan skit just described, the NFR seems to have stumbled onto the formula for success -- or carefully charted a course to achieve it -- during an era where many of the major league big brothers it wants to emulate continue to drop the ball.

As a banner in the crowd read: "BASEBALL = STEROIDS. BASKETBALL = BRAWLS. RODEO = GOOD CLEAN FUN."

Based on what I saw Sunday, I would have to agree. Provided, of course, you watch where you step.