"Toots" Mansfield
As a teenager in Bandera during the Depression, Toots Mansfield began roping calves "to try to earn some grocery money." He not only helped put food on the table, he launched a roping career that would make him a national hero in rodeo circles. Mansfield won a record seven world championships between 1939 and 1950. The charter member of the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame also dominated the event in every major rodeo throughout North America. His biggest payday was in "unofficial" money at Clovis, N.M., in 1947 when he won the winner-take-all pot of $14,500 - most of it from steer roping contestants who each paid a $1,000 entry fee. When a severe drought crippled his ranching business near Big Spring, Mansfield came out of retirement in 1955 to place third in world rankings at the age of 41. Coy Herman Mansfield also impacted his chosen profession outside the arena, serving four years as the first president of the Rodeo Cowboys Association. He was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1995.