The popular “Yellowstone” television series has triggered spin-offs quicker than a six-shooter. Country music’s influence has boot-scooted into every music genre. Western fashion is trotting down designer runways, and it’s no longer uncommon to see cowboy boots and George Strait hats out for a walk in Brooklyn.
It’s not the first time, but this go-round may be different.
“We saw something like this before, back with ‘Urban Cowboy,’” said Cody Custer, world champion bull rider and 1999 gold buckle winner at CFD. “There was a big surge in Western lifestyle. The honky-tonks got big, bull riding got big, and then it faded out.
“But I don’t think it’s going anywhere this time. It’s not just a fad. I think it’s dang sure here to stay.”
Bull riders, embodying values like grit, self-reliance and bravery, may well be the purest distillation of the Western male archetype. But that doesn’t mean that they have to look like grown men.
At the top of bull rider rankings today stands a man named Wacey Schalla, who despite his masculine profession, doesn’t yet have a whisker of facial hair.
Schalla is 19, but in the right light could pass for 12, which gives the very-adult Rolex Submariner on his wrist a kind of subversive quality, as though it were a symbol of his rebellion against youth.
He has alabaster skin and a sprinkle of adolescent blemishes on his brow. His intense, hooded blue eyes contrast with a shy smile that looks straight out of a high school yearbook.
His demeanor is a blend of ah-shucks humility and fierce self-possession, which aligns for a ranch kid from Oklahoma who’s risen in less than 24 months to the top spot in the top-paying sport in the rapidly ascendant world of American rodeo.
“It’s something I’ve done ever since I was a kid and it’s what I’ve always wanted to do, so I’m living my dream and just taking it day by day,” said Schalla, catching his breath on a bench beneath the Frontier Days grandstands, his face reflective with perspiration from a bull ride just moments earlier.
“To be where I’m at, being able to do what I love, being a mentor to younger kids, seeing all the people who are watching me from home and cheering me on, it's crazy,” he said. “It’s amazing.”
