American rodeo has served as a viable entertainment option and sport form for over a century. Similar to baseball in many respects, rodeo was participated in and influenced by minority (African American) athletes whose access to the sport was greatly inhibited. As a result, much of their legacy within the sport has been overlooked, marginalized, or blatantly omitted. This study was designed to determine whether career stratification occurs in professional rodeo among cowboys (athletes) as a result of ethnicity, professional "credentialing" and training opportunities. Due to the residual effect of institutionalized discrimination toward African Americans, a concerted effort was made to examine the impact of past segregation practices on career access and level of participation. A complimentary research design (Fraenkel & Wallen, 1996) consisting of qualitative (nonparticipant observations and in-depth interviews) and archival research (historical document and artifact reviews) methodologies was employed. Four research questions were generated to help guide the study and enable the researchers to maintain focus. A "snowball" sampling technique was used to identify 41 "key informants" (i.e., rodeo cowboys, promoters, announcers, judges, etc.). Over 200 hours and approximately 6000 miles were logged in the field while attending 35 rodeos and related venues in the Texas Gulf Coast region. "Prolonged engagement" (Lincoln & Guba, 1985)), as well as the use of multiple data collection instruments provided the triangulation requisite to confirm and disconfirm the research findings. The results of the study suggest that a differential opportunity structure and de facto segregation currently exist in American rodeo at the professional level.