by George Smith, Student Reporter
For the past couple of weeks and up until later in the fall the NWOSU Rodeo Team is hosting timed-event jackpots for students to participate in on the weekends.
The coronavirus pandemic pushed all sporting competitions back for the NCAA teams in the GAC, including the four collegiate rodeo events that would have been run this fall.
“We tried to keep it as long as we could,” said Stetson Thompson, under-coach of Stockton Graves. “These kids came to rodeo in college; that’s what they look forward to; it’s why they come to school — number one, to get an education, but number two is to rodeo.”
However, these aren’t full-blown premier rodeos that are typically hosted by colleges in the Central Plains Region. These rodeos are better known as jackpots. According to head rodeo coach Stockton Graves, these events would have likely taken place regardless of the rodeo schedule being pushed back into the Spring.
At these jackpots, only the timed events are being ran. Timed events at rodeos include everything except the rough-stock events, where the time on the clock is predetermined and your job as a competitor is to make it until the buzzer.
So far, only break-away roping and tie-down roping events have been hosted. The plan is to involve steer-wrestling and team-roping eventually according to Graves.
The winners of these timed events win some of the money from the pot. Hence: jackpot.
The amount of money in the pot is determined by the number of competitors in each event times how much the entry fee is.
These jackpots act as a small fundraiser for the rodeo team and allow the competitors to win some money to sustain their livestock and stay sharp in their events.
Which is why break-away roper and Junior health and sports science major Cedar Anderson thinks that these jackpots are a good idea.
“It’s pretty great to be so close to home and to run at the money,” she said.
The Central Plains Region typically hosts four rodeos in the fall and six in the spring, but this year all 10 rodeos will happen in a single semester.
Levi Walter, a fifth-year business student on the rodeo team, said that the jackpots are a good place to go to when there isn’t much else around, but in terms of all of the rodeos happening in the spring, he thinks that it will be easier for the team to get in a groove.
“In the past you might go to one a month,” Walter said. “This will be more realistic rodeoing.”