I am probably like a lot of guys who rode rodeo in high school, then left it in college. My skills were poor, so I drifted to saddle broncs. The real talent is in the roping events. In high school, the risks are less--we had no bulls of any size, and our broncs were fairly tame compared to the pro circuits you can see on TV nowadays. A lot of the allure comes from the history, which you mentioned. Guys like me who weren't raised on a ranch liked "being near" to that life. Funny, because most guys who were raised on a ranch couldn't wait to leave--I said most, not all.
Funniest stories usually centered around watching someone get sick on Skoal/Copenhagen (our snuff) when they started using it. Not that funny when it's your turn, though. There's no nausea like "dippin'" nausea...
Special equipment? The spitoon on the truck dash. Willie and Don Edwards in the truck's 8-track tape player. Pearl beer in the ice chest in the truck's bed that you can reach in through the trucks rear window.
ah, lost youth...