ProRodeo Sports News - July 27, 2018

2018 INDUCTEES

Walt Garrison

NFL player’s contributions to rodeo were great BY MATT NABER W alt Garrison was two types of cowboy, a fullback with the Dallas Cowboys and a ProRodeo competitor. He combined his stardom with football and rodeo to raise more than $4 million for multiple sclerosis with his Walt Garrison All Star Rodeos over 20 years. “I can’t believe it, I am so proud to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, but personally I don’t think I’ve done enough to get in there,” Garrison said. “I promoted it (rodeo), and they made a big deal of me doing it and football, and rodeo got publicity off me. I always liked rodeo, but the main thing I always liked was the (rodeo) cowboys, because they would tell you the truth on a steer or a horse or anything, even though they are trying to beat you.” Garrison grew up in Lewisville, Texas, where he spent his youth riding horses and steers. He competed in high school rodeo in bareback riding, bull riding, calf roping and steer wrestling. Garrison received a football scholarship to Oklahoma State University. In 1966, he was drafted in the fifth round by the Dallas Cowboys. Part of his signing bonus with the Cowboys included a horse trailer and a Pontiac Grand Prix. Famed Cowboys coach Tom Landry stopped Garrison from competing in nearby rodeos the night before a game but allowed him to compete in the offseason.

By combining his notoriety as a Dallas Cowboys football player with his passion for rodeo, Walt Garrison helped improve the sport of rodeo in many ways. PRCA ProRodeo file photo

provided – such as the Winston Scoreboard, sponsorships for individual cowboys and helping college rodeo athletes get scholarships. “It fit in with the product,” Garrison said. “Rodeo fits in with that and so does baseball, and it was a good event for us.” His charitable involvement also included, at the time of his induction, serving

“He (Landry) and his wife came to a rodeo, and I was unsaddling when he came out and he said, ‘Bulldogging isn’t as dangerous as I thought it was, but we won’t do that during the season, will we?’ And I said, ‘We darn sure won’t,’” Garrison laughed. Garrison competed across the country. The highlight of his rodeo career was placing fifth in the steer wrestling average at the 1974 Cheyenne (Wyo.) Frontier Days. “There’s not any better people in the world than contestants,” Garrison said. A knee injury during an exhibition steer wrestling at the 1974 College National Finals Rodeo ended his NFL career, but he wasn’t one to sit on the bench of life. The Texas cowboy was instrumental in the U.S. Smokeless Tobacco andWinston sponsorships in the PRCA and the programs those sponsors

on the board of directors for the Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund for more than two decades. “I am so tickled and so proud to even be considered because I never rodeoed for a living,” Garrison said. “It was a sport I really did love, and I loved the people in rodeo.”

ProRodeo Sports News 7/27/2018

ProRodeo.com

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