O’NEAL BROWNING WAS 16 YEARS OLD WHEN HE FIRST STARTED RIDING BULLS.
It wasn’t always about competing; in the late 1940s, he made a quick buck warming up the animals before the real cowboys of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo took over. But Browning kept notes, watching how the professionals managed to stay mounted while the broncs bucked and tumbled. It wasn’t long before he was a veritable competitor himself. By the time Browning was 44, he was a history-making cowboy—a seven-time winner of the gold and silver Top Hand champion trophy buckle, and by far the best rider in one of the state’s toughest rodeos.
Maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise. As Houston radio personality “Buffalo Bill” Bailey reminded the crowded stadium just outside the Huntsville Unit, “He’s had all the time in the world to practice.“ It was 1973, and Browning was 24 years into a life sentence for the murder of his abusive father.
Browning, a Black cowboy who grew up around Houston, was just 20 years old when he received his sentence. He became one of hundreds of competitors in the Texas Prison Rodeo, which ran from 1931 to 1986. Billed as “the wildest show of its kind ever staged,” the event was the first prison rodeo in the nation. Alongside entertainment from inmate clowns and choirs, it presented traditional rodeo events—steer riding, bulldogging, goat roping, horse racing, and bronco busting. Several of the prisoner participants had experience riding in major rodeos across the country.
Over its 55-year run, the prison rodeo brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars, attracted spectators from all over the world, garnered press in Life and TIME magazines, and featured performances from George Strait, Willie Nelson, and Dolly Parton. No matter the lineup, though, audiences were mainly there for one thing: to watch prisoners compete as they put their lives on the line.
“This wasn’t just a. “This was a chance to watch the convicts. It was a glimpse inside a prison. This was a world people didn’t have access to.”
