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An ambassador in the arena and out, Larry Mahan helped push rodeo into the mainstream

09.17.19 - Features

An ambassador in the arena and out, Larry Mahan helped push rodeo into the mainstream

The eight-time World Champion will receive the Ty Murray Top Hand Award at the PBR Heroes & Legends Celebration in November.

By PBR

PUEBLO, Colo. – Larry Mahan is a master at changing frequencies.

Mahan competed as a saddle bronc rider, bareback rider and bull rider during his rodeo career. He successfully transitioned from event to event to the tune of six all-around World Championships and two bull riding World Championships in the PRCA.

After learning how to fly planes, the cowboy pilot would change frequencies as he departed the rodeo grounds high above the sky.

The jack-of-all-trades was even able to switch into a broadcasting and color commentary career for a bit, and record his own country music album. If that was not enough, he also produced his own line of boots, clothes and hats.

Then, of course, he still always has time to follow through on his passion for working with horses.

Mahan, now 75 years old, still continues to slip effortlessly between serious discussion and deadpan humor as he has long been known for.

The all-around title race in 1972 became the subject of a documentary called “The Great American Cowboy.”

What does Mahan remember from that year?

“Everything,” he said. “Should we start with Jan. 1 or what?”

No, he is not kidding.

“Well, January 1st, I didn’t wake up hung over. I was in Odessa, Texas, probably, going to the rodeo.”

“The Great American Cowboy” helped cement Mahan’s place in broader pop culture. Even though Mahan tore his bicep in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and was forced to sit out for the remainder of the season, the movie went on to win the 1973 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and showcased Phil Lyne winning the all-around world title.

“Somebody had to give Phil Lyne a chance to win the all-around,” Mahan said. “I’m that kind of a guy! You have to have compassion for those kids from south Texas.”

Unable to keep up the bit, he laughed.

Lyne, of course, is not a cowboy that earned his accolades simply through the kindness of others. Lyne and Mahan were both inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 1979, and were later placed in the PBR’s Ring of Honor. Mahan was named to the Ring of Honor in 1998, and Lyne joined the prestigious group in 2007.

This November, they’ll share another honor as they both receive the Ty Murray Top Hand Award at the PBR Heroes & Legends Celebration in Las Vegas.

HAL Banner

In its second year, the award connects the PBR to its historical roots in rodeo and is given to cowboys who have made significant and lasting contributions to enhance the sport of rodeo and its heritage.

Mahan has been connected to the Western heritage since he was a young boy growing up in Oregon. His first love as a kid was horses and, when he got his first horse at 8 years old, he was hooked for life.

He competed in his first rodeo in 1957 and won the calf riding – and six dollars and a belt buckle – and immediately decided he was a bull rider.

By 1965, he was a World Champion.

Mahan won his bull riding titles in ’65 and ’67, and all-around titles in 1966-70 and again in ’73.

Suddenly, the shy kid from Oregon was thrust into the mainstream spotlight as the sport of rodeo began to gain national attention.

“In my opinion, the three riding events fall into the category of extreme sport,” Mahan said. “And that seemed to create a lot of interest in the sports media world, and all of a sudden I was being interviewed on the right and the left and underneath and on top. So I had to step up to the plate. But at the same time, I was realizing that rodeo was definitely growing then, and I think by me stepping on the scene and working those three events, it did create a lot of interest from the world.”

Mahan has been an ambassador for the rodeo world ever since, and it’s a role he’s thrived in.

Nowadays, he says, the PBR functions in much the same way.

“The rodeo game and bull riding, it’s really the showcase for our Western heritage and culture,” he said. “And in this day and age, it’s exciting to me to see how many fans the PBR has, because it does connect them to part of our history. And our Western culture as we know it is at a pretty sensitive spot right now. So that plays an important part, and I think that’s what the (rodeo) game really contributes a lot to this day and age, and it did even back during my time.”

It wasn’t enough for Mahan to just excel at three events within the rodeo.

In 1965, he became a pilot and even shuttled several of his fellow competitors with him from rodeo to rodeo.

“How do you go from one (rodeo) event to the other? Well, you change frequencies,” Mahan said. “When I started flying, that really helped me to understand that, because when I left the rodeo grounds, win, lose or draw, I’d better change frequencies and forget about being a rodeo cowboy and think about being a pilot.”

It was a skill that provided useful when he got into commentary on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports,” spending time in the booth with the likes of Curt Gowdy and Jim McKay. Mahan himself was still competing, and there were times his two jobs would very nearly overlap.

“There were times where I’d get off a bareback horse or a bull and run over to the booth, a couple of times still breathing hard, and jump into it,” he said. “’What was it like, Mahan?’ ‘Well, blah blah blah, and here we are,’ and change frequencies and start talking about everything else the guys were doing. That was a real exciting time, to be able to step into that and basically see if I could pull it off.”

Mahan has been able to pull off almost everything. He put out his country music album in the ‘70s, hosted a television show called “Horse World” in the ‘90s, and Larry Mahan-branded cowboy boots, hats and Western wear are all available in stores today.

Despite all of his successes, Mahan is as humble as they come.

He’s honored to be receiving the Ty Murray Top Hand Award many years after first meeting Murray at a Little Britches Rodeo. Murray was a skinny 13-year-old doing warm-up exercises that were ahead of his time and riding a bull that would’ve bucked off the professionals.

“To watch him develop into the great cowboy that he became, that was very enlightening to see that, because I knew what he had to go through to get there,” Mahan said. “So that means a lot, just that it’s the Ty Murray Award. He’s a special guy.”

But he has some words for the award’s namesake, who broke his records for consecutive and overall all-around titles won.

“I was hoping that he would get to a point in his life where he had compassion for his fellow human being,” Mahan deadpanned. “He came up and spent part of a summer with me when he was 13 at the ranch. He’d probably feel so damn guilty that he didn’t tell me then that when he was 8 years old, his goal was to beat my record! So he’s probably been for years trying to figure out how he can smooth out the way he treated me back in the day when he won his seventh all-around championship.

Mahan then laughs.

“I mean, I forgive him,” he said, “but I haven’t forgot.”