There was only one problem.
“I grew up around and idolized (eight-time world champion) Harry Tompkins,” Throckmorton recalls. “Then the first time he saw me ride he said, ‘You have no talent.’
“So I picked up a microphone, and I was always spouting off things, and he said, ‘That’s what you need to do. That’s going to be your forte.’”
Tompkins knew what he was talking about, and Throckmorton hasn’t stopped talking about rodeos since.
Three months after being inducted into the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame, Throckmorton is back in town to announce a Belton rodeo for the 20th consecutive year.
The Belton Fourth of July PRCA Rodeo gets under way Wednesday at Bell County Expo Center, and Throckmorton has become a staple of the four-day event.
“This is a great community. It’s a rodeo community and always has been,” he said. “I felt at home the first time I ever worked here.”
And Throckmorton has worked in a lot of arenas.
While growing up on a Cleburne farm, he had his sister read him the weekly rodeo statistics before he reached school age, and he called his first rodeo while he was still in high school.
Since then, Throckmorton has announced at one National Finals Rodeo, three PBR world finals and 10 Texas circuit finals in addition to doing live voice-overs for NBC’s coverage of PBR events.
“I went from amateur and little podunk rodeos to the spotlight hitting you at the national finals, but you pay your dues,” he said. “And you let your work speak for itself.
“I do Charlie Throckmorton better than anybody. I just try to do my own thing.”
And his thing is in-depth statistical knowledge blended with a style that encourages audience participation.
“I travel with a laptop computer and I’m in close contact with the (PRCA) national headquarters in Colorado Springs,” he said. “They e-mail me the entry lists, usually before anybody else, and that gives me a chance to know who I’m going to be talking about.”
Throckmorton, who resides in Burleson, doesn’t announce as many rodeos as he used to “because I pick and choose and go for quality instead of quantity.”
And the quality and the air conditioning are what always bring him back to Belton.
“Before this building was built, people here were used to having the rodeo in the park,” he explained. “Then all of the sudden there was the Expo Center and the old-timers were looking at it going, ‘When the rodeo was outdoors, we had inclement weather, heat, humidity and that was the atmosphere for rodeo.’
“Some people were kind of apprehensive when the doors opened. But now, being able to watch a rodeo in air conditioning, it’s hard to think that there was any complaining about it. I don’t think we could do without the building. We’re spoiled.”
It’s the same building in which Throckmorton experienced one of the highlights of his career - his induction into the TRC Hall of Fame in April.
“When they called me and said congratulations, I thought it was a guy playing a joke on me and I hung up on him. He had to call me back,” Throckmorton said. “It’s quite an honor and I’m really proud of it.”
While it ensures an enduring spot in Texas rodeo history, Throckmorton takes more pride in the induction because it came from his peers.
And in the end, when the days on the road seem longer and longer, it’s the people he works with along the way that make it all worthwhile.
“I enjoy the camaraderie among people, whether it be a chamber of commerce or Lions Club or Kiwanis - any rodeo committee where I’ve gone for a number of years,” he said. “It’s getting to know people for that long of a time that’s special.
“It’s more than a paycheck. I’m too lazy to work and too nervous to steal, so I do this. It’s been a good run. And it’s not over yet.”
edrennan@temple-telegram.com
