reflection

Clay Gross

B3

12/10/11

Final Reflection

            1800 pounds of fury thrust down upon your chest sounds like death just waiting to happen.   The only thing to protect a bull rider from an 1800-pound bull landing on his chest is a one-inch vest built with leather and Styrofoam.  Coming from a background where I have been around rodeo all my life, I never once thought about how insignificant the protective gear for the competitors is.  Researching rodeo revealed many details that I never completely understood and changed my look upon the sport.

            During the process of this project, I stayed focused and completed the majority of my blogs on time.  I turned one assignment in late during the entire project, but I was very busy that weekend with athletics and pregnancy testing our cattle.  I was surprised to find some very resourceful websites that gave me information on protective gear in rodeo.  Some sources contained a very strong bias against the lack of protective gear because they had been apart of personal tragedies connected to rodeo; therefore the source had strong emotion and great information.  In order to complete my blogs on time, I usually sat down Saturday morning after our football game and popped it out.  Once basketball started and we had games or practice on Friday and Saturday, I had to start my blogs on Friday during school in order to get it on in time. 

            The most interesting and conclusive information that I gathered from this research project was the difference between the enforcement in protective gear between rodeo and other physical sports.  Players receive $50,000 dollar fines for head to head contact in football, yet bull riders are not enforced to wear helmets when they can be stepped on or kicked by a bull weighing in at a ton.  I plan on riding bucking horses this summer at Snowmass and Beaver Creek and I definitely plan on using a helmet on every ride.  It has also made me realize that rodeo will probably change its protective gear rules in the near future because of new technology showing statistics against the present gear enforcements.  I believe that is why rodeo is such a special sport.  The competitors understand that they may die every time they compete and the culture of the cowboy lives through this sport.  Rodeo is one of the only sports to be free of corruption from steroids, technology and over paid contestants.  I truly hope that some rules do change, but the spirit of rodeo stays as it has always been. 

student choice

Student Choice

Clay Gross

I am going to write about the life style of a rodeo competitor in order to give the reader their point of view. 

            The rodeo contestant is unlike any other sports athlete in a variety of ways.  A below average football player earns around $750,00 dollars a year.  A below average bull rider has to live from pay to pay check driving on the road from rodeo to rodeo.  Unlike most professional sports, rodeo contestants only get paid when they place very high at the competition.  I think this makes the sport so much more exciting because the contestants never take a night off.  Rodeo contestants get to face livestock during their sport.  Some people think that rodeo consists of animal cruelty, but all rodeo competitors would disagree.  Many cowboys believe that when competing against the animal they aren’t trying to break the animal’s spirit, only match it from leap to leap.  They feel a certain connection to the animal that most people would know nothing about.  Rodeo is also a certain type of culture that has been around for hundreds of years.  The cowboy image and lifestyle fits in snug right with rodeo contestant.  You will never see more cowboy hats and cowboy boots in one area than at a rodeo.  Rodeos are a place for families to gather and people to share their stories of ranch work during the week.  While the majority of society goes bowling or hits the bar after a long week of work, ranchers and farmers spend their time at the rodeo.  Rodeo is a sport that hasn’t been corrupted by new technology or the use of steroids or money.  It has kept culture and tradition for hundreds of years and that’s the difference that is seen between rodeo athletes and the average athlete.

rhetorical analysis

Clay Gross

B3

Rhetorical Analysis

            The article I chose to dissect is called “Rodeo Vests: Adequate Safety Devices” by Paula Lavigne.  The author shows their credibility by having the article posted on ESPN’s website and containing many credible sources from well-known rodeo professionals inside the article.  Having the article posted on ESPN’s website shows it’s credible by itself because ESPN is respected as the highest competition of sports news.  The purpose of this article is to create questions inside the safety of competitors in rodeo.  The main part of safety expressed in this article is of the protective gear used to protect the competitors from 1800 pounds of fury.  The author believes that the gear used is not adequate enough for the danger in the sport.  The author also uses emotional appeal to help persuade the reader about the importance of safety gear in rodeo.  She uses the death of a bull rider and the help of the mother of that bull rider to help express the emotional stress.  “But on July 9, 2010, Derickson-Hall was less than two weeks away from competing in the National High School Finals Rodeo in Wyoming when he was killed by a bull's hoof that came down on his chest during a ride at a rodeo in Valemount, British Columbia.”(Paula Livigne, PG 1)  The author also uses logos to state many facts that show the danger in riding a bull without a helmet.  These facts also show that the rodeo protective vest hasn’t been proven to truly save the competitor from a bulls force on his chest.  The author also uses interviews in her article from well-known cowboys associated with professional rodeo, which can have a major affect on the reader.  I feel like the author is preparing this article for younger bull riders and bull riders parents and trying to get them to pay attention to the safety gear.  The purpose of this article is to save the lives of future rodeo contestants, through the knowledge of rodeo protective gear. 

Lavigne, Paula. "Rodeo Participants Increasingly Wearing Protective Gear but to Unknown Benefit, Study Shows - ESPN." ESPN: The Worldwide Leader In Sports. Web. 06 Dec. 2011. <http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=6674104>.