My short, unhappy life as a rodeo clown: I learned four important things when I enrolled in Leon Coffee's program for aspiring cowboys: protect the bull rider, protect your partner, protect yourself, and go to law school.

Texas Monthly, January, 2002 by John Spong

LEON COFFEE, PERHAPS THE MOST REVERED AND beloved clown in the history of American rodeo, had already had about enough of my crap well before I led a rank and irate fighting bull named Ghostbuster directly to the spot near the arena wall where Leon was catching his breath. I was running, as the real cowboys present that day liked to say, "pie-eyed"-in other words, scared witless-and Ghostbuster, a big gray Brahman with an ugly black hump, was about five feet behind me and closing in, kicking up dirt clods, slinging bull snot, and bellowing like the fiery furnaces of hell. Somebody was going to get messed up, no question about it, and my only thought was that I needed to get up and over that wall. Unfortunately, that wall was right by Leon.

This was not the first...