HOUSTON — Leon Coffee, a RodeoHouston legend and fan favorite, will climb inside that familiar blue barrel on the NRG Stadium floor for the last time on Sunday. As he approaches his 70th birthday, Coffee will no longer serve as a barrel man but had strong words to say about retirement: "I'm not retiring from nothing."
For three decades, Coffee has been protecting cowboys and entertaining Houston crowds as the "man in the can."
"I don't know anything else other than rodeo," Coffee said. "I can't retire."
With his bright green cowboy hat, unmistakable laugh and signature smile, he somehow managed to make a dangerous job look fun. But don't let the title rodeo clown fool you. This guy stares down bulls for a living.
"You've got 1,800 pounds of master beef running at you, going 40 miles an hour," Coffee recently told KHOU 11.
Over the years, the 69-year-old sacrificed his own body to help other bullfighters distract the angry beasts that try to buck off cowboys as they hang on for dear life.
"I've had 143 different breaks and a lot of them two or three times," Coffee said. "The whole right side of my face is all plastic and wire. They had to rebuild all that."
He'll still be a part of the rodeo, just from a different vantage point.
"I'll be up in the stands, I'm gonna be up in the suites, I'm gonna be available," he explained.
For Coffee, who's been a cowboy his whole life, his new role is an opportunity to keep doing what he loves most -- help grow the sport of rodeo.
"Me, my props are going to be sitting in these seats right here," he said. "I'm going to be around 'til the good lord takes me away."
Coffee's hand-picked replacement in the barrel is expected to be named this spring.