Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2017 i The Team Roping Journal

Dear Roper, I’m not sure when a job becomes a career, but after about 16 years of working rodeo and team roping, I think it’s somewhat safe to say it has been more than a job for me. During my tenure, I’ve seen cowboys begin their professional careers, have wonderful success, and move on to new pursuits. (Of course, there are plenty who were here before I started and are still going; namely, our editors-in-chief, Jake Barnes and Clay O’Brien Cooper.) When I first agreed to work for the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, Hadley Barrett and Harry Vold were each at the top of the class of their respective fields. As I moved on to this magazine, they remained the wise owls, leading and shaping the industry. Announcers and stock…

Legends Championship: Bob Dineen and Blake Nelson, 40.70 seconds on four head, $3,130 each #13 Championships: CY Christensen and Taylor Duby, 31.32 seconds on four head, $4,010 each #11 Championships: Tyler Muth and Preston Chamberlain, 35.35 seconds on four head, $5,110 each National #10 Finale: Rocky McLeod and Wade Baize, 36.74 seconds on four head, $8,200 each National #12 Finale: Clint Groff and Logan Rogers, 44.75 seconds on five head, $50,000 each National #9 Finale: Jace Johnson and Tyler Jiron, 40.53 seconds on four head, $50,000 each National #8 Finale: Chuck Nelson and Dan Olson, 40.60 seconds on four head, $50,000 each #7 Championships: Eliana Tena and Dale Vayro, 29.84 seconds on three head, $2,300 each #6 Championships: Candie Gurren and Michael White, 23.29 seconds on two head, $1,390 each…

I started my career roping with Bret Boatright, Dee Pickett, Tee Woolman and Mark Simon, so I learned a lot about entering and traveling right off the bat. Since then, I’ve pretty much always done the entering for my partner and me and our buddy team. I don’t even write any of it down anymore—it’s all in my head. I’m not saying I’ve never missed the books, but I can count on one hand when that’s happened. So young guys are coming into the game trying to out-enter those of us who have been calling in for the same rodeos for decades, and that’s tough. Most of the time, you see young guys having success with a veteran, and the entering is a big part of that. Due Diligence I…

Number and End: #5 Header Association of Preference: All of them, I just like to rope. But I think the World Series, especially now after this big win. Rope of Choice: Classic Spyder Biggest Win: The Perfect 10 in Las Vegas. The whole weekend was fun. Before roping and after seeing how many teams entered, I was worried, wondering how lucky does someone have to be to win this? I was thinking, I don’t know if I have enough luck on my side to win. We caught the first steer, and then we caught the second steer, and I started to think maybe we had a chance. Then after the third steer, they announced we were high call, and we were so happy and excited. When the short round started,…

T he new generation has taken roping to a level like you can’t even imagine. I just roped at the George Strait (Team Roping Classic), and it was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve been 3 once in my career, and I saw several 3-second runs there in one day. There’s a whole new generation of ropers and they’ve changed roping dramatically. It’s not a game of consistency and being conservative anymore. These days, avoiding unforced errors doesn’t always get a check. There are guys I’ve never seen before or heard of who can do it, and it’s not luck. These guys are really good. All sports evolve. I watch a lot of basketball, and that game has changed, too. There used to be a big guy—a big center—who…

Erich Rogers and Cory Petska, fresh off a win at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, picked up a win in the Arizona sunshine at the Fiesta de los Vaqueros in Tucson. Their time of 12.7 seconds on two head netted them $9,545 a man thanks to their short-round winning 6.5-second run. The committee at Tucson paid equal money this year in the team roping, thanks to a by-law passed last year requiring any rodeo with a short round to provide equal money to headers and heelers.…

Unveiled in 1976, PROCOM—Professional Rodeo Communications—simplified the business of entering a rodeo. PROCOM handles approximately 700,000 calls per year, averaging more than 2,000 per day during the peak summer season. With more than 40 operators manning telephones during the peak season, PROCOM makes the task of entering rodeos and tracking those entries easy for cowboys and rodeo secretaries, which in turn simplifies the rodeo production process for committees. With one telephone call, cowboys can enter more than one rodeo sanctioned by the PRCA, offering preferences of the rodeos and times at which they want to compete. The fully computerized system randomly appoints cowboys to a position in the competition schedule and matches roughstock riders with bucking stock. With the “buddy system,” cowboys can enter a maximum of three other competitors…

Arkansas’ Whitney DeSalvo has been on fire as of late—getting her first Wildfire Ladies Open win this February and following it up with a win at the Patriot’s All-Girl just a week later. In early April, DeSalvo picked up yet another win at the Charlie 1 Horse Cowgirls Only in Salado, Texas. DeSalvo is undoubtedly joining the ranks of the top heelers in the game, but what’s also sure is that a little 5-year-old mare, Becky, is stepping up and doing her part to help put DeSalvo on the fast track to success. The sorrel 5-year-old, registered as Rebecca Roan, came from DeSalvo’s friend, Jordan Sullivan, from Mt. Vernon, Ark. DeSalvo was needing a mount and called Sullivan to see what he had. “I asked him about her, and he…

What does it take to get the least expressive man in rodeo to do the ole “Junior fallback” on the last steer of the day? It takes the moment he is winning the richest jackpot paycheck of his 38-year-career with two teams to go. Clay O’Brien Cooper (nicknamed “Champ” for his seven heeling world championships) never, ever displays any reaction in the arena. The man from Gardnerville, Nev., has roped his way to $3 million, been in the ProRodeo Hall of Fame since the 1990s, and been on camera since he was a kid. But never any reaction. During the early rounds of the 35th Annual George Strait Team Roping Classic (GSTRC) in San Antonio, Texas, on March 11, the Wrangler Network cameraman only zoomed in on one man besides…

Erich Rogers is perhaps one of the most dominant headers of the last five years, and his partnership with Cory Petska has been rock solid since joining forces in 2013. They’ve earned $606,308 in their first three years together, and they’ve already picked up wins in Tuscon, Ariz., and Fort Worth, Texas, in 2017. But over the Fourth-of-July run in 2015, Rogers and Petska struggled, until they pulled in to St. Paul, Ore. They tied for second and third in the first round with Derrick Begay and Clay O’Brien Cooper with a 4.8-second run, and split the last hole in the second round with Mike McGinn and Bill Justus and Tyler Waters and Steve Northcott with a 5.5-second run. They won the average and banked a much-needed $7,084 a man.…

JACKPOT SENSE The sun wasn’t the only thing hot in Arizona this winter—Clay Smith won three of the biggest jackpots during the Arizona run, including the Mike Cervi Jr. Memorial in Marana worth $18,500 a man. For Smith, consistency in the jackpot game is all about riding a good horse, reading the steers and giving your heeler the best possible shot, and he breaks that down over five steers at the Cervi. 1 We saw that steer come in, and he was small and light. I wanted to run pretty close and try to handle him for Will (Woodfin). These steers were smaller than normal, so the trick was to try to get out of the barrier good and keep them on their feet around the corner. Some would wipe…

To get good at anything, you have to work at it. You need to figure out the key elements to where you can perform them over and over again, so you can react to situations that arise. You also need to be analytical—to break down and dissect the important aspects of what you’re doing to become good at executing them. The aim and goal is to take that to competition and be able to do that in the competitive atmosphere, which is a little bit faster paced and is a more intense, pressurized situation. I’ve seen people in the ditch on both sides of the road—talented guys who seemed like they didn’t have a care in life, had worked on it but didn’t dwell on everything, like I do. The…

Some college kids spend their spring breaks in Cancun; others go to Cabo. Oklahoma’s Zac Small? He spent his spring break from the rigors of vet school at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tenn., banking $55,000 at RodeoHouston with South Dakota heeler Levi Lord. The duo paired up at Houston when their regular partners—Will Woodfin for Small and Tyler Waters for Lord—didn’t qualify for the limited, non-sanctioned rodeo. The same thing had happened to them at the San Antonio (Texas) Stock Show and Rodeo last year, so when both realized they needed a run for Houston, they thought they’d try it again. Houston is a 19-day, tournament-style rodeo, where the Super Series is organized into five three-day series, plus two Semifinal rounds, a Wild…

Only 13 men have ever won the Cinch Timed Event Championship in its 33-year history. Three of them are Tierneys. Jess Tierney was 5 years old the first time he watched his ProRodeo Hall of Fame father, Paul, win the Cinch Timed Event Championship in 1987. He grew up helping his dad twist three more TEC titles in 1991, ’97 and 2000, and in recent years saw his little brother, Paul David, win a pair of them in 2014 and 2016. In keeping with the Tierney way, Jess worked hard—and quietly—behind the scenes. He helped with his dad’s horses out at the barn and behind the chutes. Jess headed and heeled for Paul as a helper before he ever threw his own name in the Timed Event contestant hat. Some…