ProRodeo Sports News - March 1, 2024

TIME CAPSULE LOUIS BROOKS

Louis Brooks, recognized as one of the top all-around cowboys of all time, won six world champ ionships before his career was

cut short because of a heart problem.

PRCA ProRodeo file photo

All-Timer

ProRodeo Hall of Famer won six world titles in three years

BY PRORODEO STAFF L ouis Brooks is recognized as one of the all-time rodeo greats, even though his career lasted only seven seasons. The highly decorated cowboy won six world championships in a three-year period – including a rare triple crown in 1944 when he was the champion all around cowboy while also claiming the saddle bronc riding and bareback riding titles. Brooks earned two gold buckles each in all-around (1943-44), saddle bronc riding (1943-44) and bareback riding (1942, ’44). He was also a roper and usually entered all events – and frequently won. Later in his career, he specialized more in bareback riding and saddle bronc riding. “When I quit the bulls,” he said, “my bareback and saddle bronc riding improved 40 percent in 30 days.” Before the 1944 season, Brooks was diagnosed with a heart problem and was told if he wanted to live to be 30, “he’d better get a nice, soft office job,” his widow, Nita Brooks Lewallen, told ProRodeo Sports News in 1994. Brooks promised his wife he’d retire if he won the 1944 all-around championship – he became the first to win it in consecutive years – and he kept that pledge. Brooks was also the first rodeo cowboy to ride the legendary tie-down

roping horse, Baldy, who was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1979. Baldy helped win four tie-down roping world championships, two with Clyde Burk (1942, ’44) and two with Troy Fort (1947, ’49). Brooks said, “I knew he was a good horse, a smart horse, but I didn’t know he’d turn out as good as he did.” Born in Fletcher, Okla., in 1916, Brooks was only 2 when his father died. Raised by his grandparents, he quit school after the 10th grade and began working on ranches in Oklahoma until he was 20. His first rodeo was in 1936 in Pawhuska, Okla. When he retired from rodeo, Brooks served in 1945 as the Rodeo Cowboys Association vice-president, the same year that he and his wife, Nita, went into the ranching business near Sweetwater, Texas. He operated on 100 sections and raised brangus cattle, quarter horses and thoroughbreds. His horses won the Berkeley Handicap in California and the Land of Enchantment Futurity in New Mexico, and he owned a mare that was bred to another Triple Crown champion, Secretariat, and sold that offspring, Fiesta Lady, for a large sum of money. Brooks died of cancer in 1983 at age 66; six years later, Nita married one of Brooks’ respected friends, G.K. Lewallen, who had been a bull rider and saddle bronc rider. The Lewallens were in attendance when Brooks was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1991.

ProRodeo Sports News 3/1/2024

ProRodeo.com

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