RIDE 'EM, COWBOYS!

Curtis Leach grew up learning to ride bulls the way most boys learn to play baseball. First he rode calves, then steers and then junior bulls before graduating to the 2,000-pound behemoths strutting the arena this weekend at the Longhorn World Championship Rodeo.

Now a senior at Southeast Missouri State University, Leach has broken an arm, an ankle, a few ribs, fingers and toes and has suffered four concussions so far in the learning process. That doesn't seem to matter to him.

"It's the most addictive thing I've ever come across," he says. "It's David versus Goliath, doing something most people don't do."

The rodeo continues at 8 p.m. tonight at the Show Me Center and will conclude with competition at 2 p.m. Sunday.

Leach competed in the Longhorn Rodeo Slack Competition Thursday night. On slack night, the cowboys and cowgirls who weren't lucky enough to draw a place in the three scheduled rodeo performances get their chance. Though the audience consists mainly of family and friends of the riders, their times and point totals count just the same as those on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Slack is necessary because so many people want to compete in a rodeo. Four former world champions were among the 25 steer wresters, 23 barrel racers, 22 calf ropers and 16 bull riders competing in slack.

Leach is not your typical bull rider. A native of Elsinore, he is an English major who plans to be a free-lance writer when he graduates. Many of his fellow students have long hair and earrings but the solidly built Leach has a more conservative style.

"Most people (who rodeo) respect the tradition," he said.

The sport is expensive, and only the winners get paid. Entry fees can run $100-200, and chasing rodeos across the country is costly. Then there are the hospital bills.

"Things go wrong. Sometimes the bull is better than you," Leach says.

But anybody who loves rodeo thinks it's all worthwhile.

"Most people are poor as dirt but the competitive spirit is still in them," he says.

"Some athletic tape and aspirins and they're ready to go."

The bull Leach drew Thursday was Cliffhanger, a bull known for "a lot of drop." That's bull rider lingo for a ride like a roller coaster.

Leach tallied 73 points on Cliffhanger and at the end of Friday night's competition, he was in ???? place.

Twenty-three-year-old Pat Collier grew up competing in national high school rodeos while at Jackson High School and now rides for Murray State University. Saddle bronc riding and steer wrestling have been his two events, but a leg injury has curtailed his days riding broncs.

At 6-4 and 240 pounds, he's a bit large for a bronc rider anyway but a good size to wrestle a 600-pound steer to the ground. "The bigger you are the better in bull-dogging," he says.

Dropping off a horse onto the horns of a steer is his idea of fun. "It's a rush," he says.

Collier likes the crowds, the fans, being one place today and somewhere else tomorrow to compete in a rodeo. He competed at The Palace, the home of the Detroit Pistons, last weekend in Auburn Hills, Mich. And he was due in Mississippi Friday night after steer wrestling in the slack here Thursday.

After Friday night's competition, his time was good for ??? place.

Collier, the son of Patsy and Ronald Collier of Jackson, plans to compete professionally after finishing up at Murray State this year. It's a future that will require a hardy constitution.

"It's hard to make a living solely rodeoing," says Longhorn Rodeo representative Dayna Cravens. "Only six to eight people are going to make money back."

Cravens is a former barrel racer. Her mother, Mary Cravens, is a former two-time world champion barrel racer.

The lure of rodeo is its independence and the romance Americans still have with cowboys, she says. "And there is nothing quite like being on the back fo a horse going 30 mph when it's going right."