Berry, Ace

Just 15 years, 11 months old when he qualified for the National Finals Rodeo the first time in 1962 – the second-youngest competitor in NFR history – Ace Berry remained a fixture there into the mid-1970s, competing at both ends of the arena. The Oakdale, Calif., cowboy qualified for the NFR in team roping 14 consecutive years (1962-75), with 10 different partners, and earned a spot in the NFR bareback riding competition six times (1967, 1969-73). Berry and Phil Lyne are the only men to win NFR average titles in a roughstock event and a timed event in the same year. Berry won the 1972 NFR team roping title with John Miller and the bareback riding with what was then a rodeo-record 685 points, the same year that Lyne won the average in bull riding and tie-down roping. Berry also won NFR average titles in team roping in 1967 and in bareback riding in 1971. He was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2009.