Keeping people happy and safe

“Not everyone can put a smile on someone’s face,” says Leon Coffee.

Leon is a legend in American rodeo. He is an inductee of the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame and “Gold Card” Member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA), the world’s largest rodeo organization.

A self-described “professional rodeo clown, former bullfighter, entertainer, general jack of all trades and master of none,” Leon has been all around the rodeo scene since the late 1960s.

“God put me on this earth to do two things, and I can do both of them in a rodeo arena,” he says. “I make people happy. And while I never say I save lives, because that’s God’s job, I have kept a lot of people safe from bodily injury.”

While a rodeo clown keeps the crowd entertained during breaks in the action with jokes, skits and a costume, a “bullfighter” is a much different, more dangerous job. Officially certified by the PRCA, a bullfighter’s antics and colorful costumes distract the angry bulls so the cowboys can safely get out of the way after getting thrown to the ground after a ride. Leon’s decades of experience have taught him what can happen when things go wrong in the rodeo arena.

“In this business it’s your common sense that keeps you alive,” he says. “There’s no middle ground. You’ve got 1,800 pounds of beef with a couple of baseball bats sticking out of the side of his head. You’ve got to wait until that bull gets within a certain distance of you before you make your move and it had better be the right one.”

Leon grew up around horses and rodeo, and competed in junior events. After three years in the Army, he came back to professional rodeo full-time. In the 1970s he started “fighting” bulls instead of riding them, distracting the animals and protecting the cowboys after a ride.

Over the years, he has worked virtually every Pro Rodeo Final throughout North America, was named Rodeo Clown of the Year in 1983, and has been rated as one of the sport’s top three rodeo clowns for nearly two decades.

Leon has a deep sense of what rodeo means. “This is the focal point of an agricultural community,” Leon says. “These are the people who feed the world. When you’re out here, raising cows and stuff, this is a lifestyle. This is how we have some fun with it. Rodeo is a sideshow for the people who are making their living for the world.”

Behind the makeup, the arena antics, the skits, and jokes, Leon understands rodeo people and the audience he is entertaining. “Everything on earth has a purpose and dignity comes with it,” says Leon. “Life is great. It’s how you live it. And it’s up to you if you mess it up.”

“The most important word in the world is ‘others’,” he says. “If you think about somebody other than yourself, that person is going to think about someone else too. Eventually it comes back and someone is thinking about you” says Leon. “It’s a big circle. That’s how the circle continues. You have got to think about others.”

Leon likes to tell the story of a lesson he learned from a Native American friend of his in South Dakota. His friend asked Leon, if he were to die right now, would his family and God be proud of him?

“Because you don’t know when you are going to die. Every moment of the day, there is a possibility of that happening,” says Leon. “That’s why I've got to make sure that my family and God is going to be proud of what I'm doing every moment. And that moment never stops.”
ILO Office for the United States · Leon Coffee, Rodeo Clown, Comanche Springs Rodeo, Fort Stockton, Texas