|
The 2006 rodeo season is well under way and we’re in the middle of the “winter run” at the buildings. I can’t really tell you who has won what because this early in the year there’s not much point in keeping up with it. For me, the rodeo season doesn’t really kick off until the Reno Rodeo in June and anything I win prior to that is just a bonus.
Every year there are a number of guys that will start the year off by saying, “I’ll go to the winter rodeos in the buildings and if I win, I’ll keep going.”
Personally, I think that plan is a bad idea. To start with it’s hard to win at the winter buildings. You have to draw well, get up just right at the performances and then rope well too. In addition to all that, these rodeos are spread out and hard to get to, plus it’s cold.
This year I’ve been to four rodeos so far when I could have been to twice as many. I still have seventy-one to go to.
To have an honest chance at making the national finals you need to commit for the entire year. The guys who make a run at the winter buildings will make an evaluation on ten or fifteen of the harder rodeos to win. Many have the talent, ability and even the horsepower to go to the national finals but end up broke or heart broken without giving themselves a legitimate chance.
Think of it this way – if you played basketball and had a horrible first quarter, would you go to the coach and say, “Look, this just isn’t going my way so I’m going to pull out and go home now.” I doubt it, there’s three more quarters left to play.
Some guys have goals of how much they want to have won by certain rodeos. Sure I do in the back of my mind, but if I’m not at that goal I don’t get discouraged. The way I see it is if I’ve been to four rodeos and not won anything, then the odds have gone up tremendously that I’ll win something at the next few, because that’s the way it works.
I know and accept this is a yearlong commitment with high and lows. My main goal is to win on the good calves. There will be calves that I can’t win on, but it’s important to me not to waste a good one. If I try to win on all the good calves, the rest will take care of itself.
If you’re going to rodeo professionally, do yourself justice and commit at least until Reno. If I could only rodeo for six months, I wouldn’t even start until then.
The other day I heard someone say, “I sure would like to see my name in the PSN in February.”
That would be nice but I want see mine there in December.
If you have a topic you would like to see covered in this article, let me know about it. You can post a message on my website at: stransmith.com. I’d love to hear from you.
|
