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In 1961, while he was still in high school, Mahan was thrown by a bull, which then stepped on his jaw and broke it in five places. He has since had a face bone shattered, a rib broken and three vertebrae cracked. Last week in Phoenix, a bull threw him alongside a metal barrel in which a rodeo clown was hiding, then turned, charged, missed Mahan by a hair, but caught the barrel and butted its 300-lb. weight 6 ft. into the air. The clown was lucky to escape with only minor injuries. It was a close call for all concerned. "I consider myself fortunate," says Mahan. "Oh, I worry sometimes. But the thing I like most about rodeo is that it's so unpredictable."