THE OPENING LINE

Monday, Dec. 4, 2006 | 7:24 a.m.

RODEO LINGO

The neat thing about sports is it has a language all its own. Multiply that by four when it comes to Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen.

The National Finals Rodeo, which is permeating the Thomas & Mack Center through Sunday (it'll probably be a week from Wednesday before the exhaust fans and industrial-strength Glade finish their work), is no different.

For instance, for years I thought "Cowboy Up" was a slang expression to describe what happens when the women's barrel racing starts and virtually everybody in the arena gets out of his seat and heads to the concourse for one last beer before the bull riding starts.

It wasn't until the Boston Red Sox adopted "Cowboy Up" as their battle cry on their way to winning the 2004 World Series that I learned it meant sucking it up during times of adversity.

Some other terms you might hear being bandied by the cowboys (self-explanatory) and buckle bunnies (women who admire them) this week include: arm jerker (a stout animal that bucks with a lot of power), Buford (an easy animal to ride or compete on, unless you are sitting next to a city slicker from Baltimore, in which case he's probably referring to the old Orioles outfielder), freight-trained (being run over by an animal traveling at a high rate of speed) and pulling leather (grabbing hold of the saddle).

You might also hear someone refer to getting hickeyed. This is what happens in team roping when the rope catches on a steer's horn. No score is given. This is also what can happen when a cowboy and a buckle bunny cozy up after a go-round (performance). Sometimes, a score is given, but it's usually not very high.

So let's say you just watched a bull rider wrap his rope tight around the belly of a bull that is constantly looking to charge someone down. Then when the chute opened, the bull changed directions before bucking the rider off over his hind end and, just to show who's boss, trampled him on his way out of the arena.

You could elbow the guy in the black hat sitting next to you and say: "Hoo-boy! He had the suicide wrap nice and snug on that head hunter but then he sucked back and tossed ol' J.W. right out the back door. Freight-trained him real good, hoo-boy!"

That would surely impress your new rodeo buddy.

But probably not as much as offering to buy him a beer.

THIS WEEK'S BEST BET

National Finals Rodeo, Today-Sunday, Thomas & Mack Center.

Tickets are scarce, but if you can find one next to the needle in the haystack, grab it. Or put it on eBay and watch the money roll in.

TICKETS: Sold out

ON THE WEB: www.unlvtickets.com

ALSO WORTH A LOOK

New Las Vegas Marathon, 6 a.m. Sunday, along the Las Vegas Strip, course starts and finishes at Mandalay Bay.

Set your alarm early and watch thousands of skinny guys and gals with low heart rates chase six Kenyans for 26.2 miles.

TICKETS: Free

ON THE WEB: www.lvmarathon.com

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