Rodeo cowboy Jim Shoulders dies at 79

OKLAHOMA CITY - Jim Shoulders, who built his name as a rodeo cowboy and achieved added fame as a beer pitchman, died Wednesday. He was 79.

Shoulders, who lived in Henryetta, had a longtime heart ailment, son Marvin Paul Shoulders said.

Jim Shoulders won 16 world championships, the most of any rodeo cowboy, and was a charter member of the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame.

Years after riding his final bull, Shoulders starred with former Yankees manager Billy Martin in popular ads for Miller Lite.

Tulsa World

Rodeo hero Jim Shoulders dead at 79
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=070620_1__HENRY04740&breadcrumb=local

By Staff reports
6/20/2007

HENRYETTA — Jim Shoulders — 16 times a world champion in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association and one of the greatest athletes in state history — has died. He was 79.

Services are set for 2 p.m. Sunday at the Jim Shoulders Rodeo Arena in Henryetta under the direction of Shurden Funeral Home.

Shoulders was born in Tulsa and graduated from East Central High School, before he moved to Henryetta in 1951.

He won a record 16 Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association world championships: all-around in 1949, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959; bareback riding in 1950, 1956, 1957, 1958; bull riding in 1951, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959.

Shoulders was a member of the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame, the Madison Square Garden Hall of Fame, and the Cowboy Hall of Fame.

Thanks!

Quite a ride, a good man.

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(excerpted)

Jim Shoulders - Living Legends North Texas Equine.com.

Jim has met celebrities by the thousands; politicians, movie stars, and other notable sports legends he appeared with in the Miller Lite "All Stars" advertising campaign in the 1970's and '80's. The campaign ran for 15 years and was the 2nd most successful in advertising history. There was always plenty of joking on set. "Bob Uecker is the funniest man I was ever around," says Jim, "and he always made himself the butt of his jokes."

Jim says he is most proud of his family. "I have four kids and none of them has ever been in trouble or a worry to me." Of wife Sharon, he says "I'm thinkin' about keeping her. I don't have time to train another one." Their long-term marriage can be attributed to a mutual devotion that is evident today.

Sharon tells of their first date: "When he first asked me out, it was for an all day horseback ride - but he only owned one horse." When Jim dropped her off at home that evening, he turned to kiss her and she leaped from the back of the horse. "I was amazed she didn't get hurt" he says.

The next day he told friends he wouldn't see her again because "she had the opportunity to kiss me and she didn't. She had to be dumb." Sharon moved away and then back again over the next few years, seeing Jim on occasion.

Then she returned in her senior year of high school. They dated, and when Sharon's parents announced plans to move to Washington, Jim decided to take matters into his own hands. "I told I'd just have to marry her and keep her here because I couldn't move to Washington. There weren't enough rodeos."

In five years they had 3 small children and a 400 acre ranch outside Henryetta. Jim went off to rodeo and make money while Sharon tended the ranch and children. They drilled 6 water wells and found all too salty to use, so they had to haul water to the ranch until the city water became available a few years later. They built a second floor and kitchen on to the old ranch house.

In winter, Sharon would stuff rags and sacks into the cracks between the wall and floor to keep the cold and snow out. The roads would get so bad at times that she had to use their tractor and trailer to get the kids to their bus stop a mile from the house. They moved into town "temporarily" until they could build a new house - about 30 years ago.

Their son Marvin lives on the ranch now, in a newer home, with his family and runs it along side Jim and Sharon.

When asked about an autobiography, Jim says that won't happen because "it just ain't none of their business. Sharon's going to write a book after I'm gone. She can't do it before then 'cause I just flat won't let her". Sharon nods and smiles in agreement. ...

The Collected Wisdom of Jim Shoulders
Sun February 11, 2007
http://www.newsok.com/article/3011727
Interviewed by Ed Godfrey
The Oklahoman

Jim Shoulders rode his last bull in 1970 at the Houston Livestock Show. Thirty-seven years later, he is still revered in the rodeo world.

Often referred to as the Babe Ruth of rodeo, this 78-year-old ProRodeo Hall of Famer from Henryetta is a 16-time world rodeo champion. He won seven world titles in bull riding, five all-around world championships and four bareback bronc world crowns. He was a reserve champion (finishing second) 10 times.

But the most money Shoulders ever won in a single year in the sport was $50,000.

On the eve of the Professional Bull Riding, Inc., $1 million U.S. Smokeless Co. Challenger Tour Championship at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie and then Friday through Sunday at the Ford Center, Shoulders shares some collected wisdom he compiled in 28 years as a bull rider.

Being an ol’ bull rider, I always said we carried the rest of the rodeo anyway because they always had the bull riding last and it was the most popular event. That’s the American way. When we go to a car race, if you don’t see a wreck, you are a little disappointed. If you go to a rodeo and don’t see some wrecks, you are disappointed. The American people don’t want to see anybody get killed, but if somebody gets killed, we don’t want to miss it.

The PBR has really got a lot of money into it. That’s the difference today. It starts with an M and ends with a Y. They call it money.

It’s really no different than any other sport. Look at the money Joe DiMaggio made or (Mickey) Mantle. In 1956, I won the so-called triple crown of rodeo: bull riding, bareback bronc riding and the all-around and won a little over $50,000. Mantle won the triple crown in baseball that year, and his salary was, I think, $41,000, or something like that. They made a big deal about a champion rodeo man got his hands on more money than Mantle did.

But every time you turn around now one of them baseball players has signed a $250 million contract or something like that. So rodeoing and bull riding is nothing like the other sports.

I always felt like I didn’t win enough. In 1947, my wife, Sharon, and I had just got married and I decided to enter the rodeo at the Madison Square Garden and we would call it a honeymoon. And if I was lucky enough to win something, it would be more of a fun honeymoon. I had enough money. I knew we could get back home.

I ended up winning both events, the bareback bronc riding and the bull riding and won a little over $5,000. For an ole’ kid a year out of high school, that was a lot of money. I thought I would never see another poor day, but I don’t know what happened to that $5,000.

I had an older brother that was rodeoing and riding bulls and that gave me the bug. The first time, I went to Oilton. It was the Fourth of July and they had a minor league rodeo.

I had been working in the wheat harvest for 25 cents an hour but they didn’t have a thrashing crew until after the fourth, so I went over to Oilton and they had a bull riding and I entered. I was 14. That would have been in ‘43, I guess. I won $18 and that sure beat that wheat harvest for 25 cents an hour for 10 hours a day.

I’ve looked up at a lot of bulls. Herds of ‘em. Not because I wanted to either. Every stock contractor has two or three really rank bulls. That is the difference between the PBR and back then.

You go to one of these PBRs and they have 10 or 12 different contractors and they just take the top two or top three from an outfit. And you put them all together and it’s like going to the National Finals Rodeo. If they want to at the National Finals, they can put 15 rank sons of guns in there and everybody is laying all over the arena. And that’s the way it is at the PBR.

I still go to quite a lot of ‘em (bull riding events). I work for Wrangler Jeans and the Justin Boot Company. And I make a lot of appearances.

I always thought I had a hell of a lot more (injuries) than my share. They hadn’t invented concussions when I was still in rodeoing. Back then, you just got knocked out and they poured water on you and drug you out of the arena and let you come to. I had a few of them.

They didn’t have very many doctors. Very few rodeos even had an ambulance on call. New York, at the Garden, always had a butcher I called him instead of a doctor. He was the doctor on call for all the prize fights in the early ‘40s and ‘50s.

That ol’ son of a gun didn’t have no mercy for you or sympathy. You didn’t want to go see him and you didn’t want the first aid crew at Calgary to get hold of you, because they handled you like a dead man.

I got both collarbones broke a couple of times. I had a few (broken) ribs. A bull hit me in the face in Houston and broke 27 bones in my face. They had to do some plastic surgery on me there. When you got banged up, you just learned how to heal quick.

A lot of people still remember that Miller Lite deal. That was a tough job. Most people work all week so they can go to the bar on Saturday night. I got paid to go every night. It was a fun job.

Getting to be around guys like Billy Martin, Boog Powell and Ben Davidson and (John) Madden and that group of ol’ has-beens. Martin was a piece of work, I will say that.

You would go through an airport and people would come up and say, “I didn’t punch that doggie.” They ran that commercial so much.

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