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TARLETON STATE UNIVERSITY
BY PHIL RIDDLE
28
7
NATIONAL TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP TITLES
TARLETON RODEO HAS A GRIP ON WINNING
Tarleton State University has been home to rodeo champions since 1967.
Going back more than five decades, the program boasts seven national team titles and 28 individual College National Finals Rodeo champs.
Coach Mark Eakin helmed two of those team championships.
“If you think of all the students who have come through the rodeo program at Tarleton, they’ve set a standard like no other program across the nation,” he said. “They gave us something to strive for — the tradition of winning — and helped create the support that Tarleton has for our program.”
While covid made life difficult for riders and ropers at all levels, Tarleton still managed to shine. Consider:
• After losing much of the 2020 spring season,
Tarleton placed half a dozen qualifiers in this year’s CNFR in Casper, Wyo. • Last February the university’s Rodeo Hall of
Fame inducted six new members, all part of the 2005 national championship team. • That came on the heels of the PRCA National
Finals Rodeo, held in December in Arlington, that had a competitor with Tarleton ties in every event. One of them took a world crown. • That same month, university officials announced the acquisition of a new facility that will house the storied rodeo program. • The women’s national champions of 1969, 1970 and 1971 were honored in 2020 with induction into the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame.
IN THE DIRT
Steer wrestler Walt Arnold captured the NIRA Southwest Regional crown in 2021 on his way to a second appearance at the CNFR. NO ESCAPING
Sarah Angelone flicks her rope ion the first go-rouynd of the 2021 CNFR. The Tarleton breakaway roper qualified for the Casper event by winning the NIRA Southwest title.
CHAMPIONSHIP FORM
Tarleton breakaway roper Maddy Deerman performs in the early going of the 2021 College National Finals Rodeo in June in Casper, Wyo. Deerman was one of six qualifiers to the annual championship rodeo.
SUCCESSFUL RIDE
Tarleton saddle bronc rider Jake Barnes qualified for his third CNFR in 2021. Barnes is one of four Tarleton riders and ropers who performed in the championship finals.
ROUGH STOCK
Cullen Telfer represented Tarleton in the bull riding event at the 2021 CNFR after earning the NIRA Southwest Regional title.
After a covid-related cancellation a year ago, six members of Tarleton’s 2021 team earned a spot in this year’s College National Finals Rodeo. Breakaway ropers Sarah Angelone and Maddy Deerman, goat tyer Rickie Engesser, saddle bronc rider Jake Barnes, bull rider Cullen Telfer and steer wrestler Walt Arnold all represented the university in the annual June event.
Barnes, Telfer, Arnold and Engesser qualified for the championship finals, the cap of a demanding campaign that stretches from September to April.
“The college rodeo season is one of the toughest things to do,” said Arnold, the 2021 National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association Southwest Region steer wrestling champion. “You only get 10 rodeos. In pro rodeo you can go to 80 a year, but in college you have to make all 10 count.”
Tarleton’s Rodeo Hall of Fame named its 2021 inductees, known for a long line of firsts, both as individual competitors and as members of the university team. Barrel racer Sue Magers, roper Kirby Eppert and bareback bronc riders Perry Lee and Richmond Champion are set for November induction.
Magers was the first woman to make the CNFR while representing Tarleton, qualifying in 1965 and again in 1966.
Eppert, winner of the 2007 CNFR All-Around Cowgirl title, qualified multiple times in both breakaway roping and goat tying. As a pro she qualified for the National Finals Rodeo in 2020, the first year the event included breakaway roping.
Lee was the first bareback rider to win a national championship for Tarleton, taking the CNFR event in 1973, and Champion was the first bareback rider to earn $1 million for a single ride, claiming that distinction while still a Tarleton student. He has qualified for the NFR six times and was the first American Rodeo winner in 2014.
The Tarleton Rodeo Hall of Fame made its first inductions in 2012 and features 48 high-achieving student-athletes and others instrumental in the program’s success.
BRODY CRESS
Former Tarleton State University bronc rider Brody Cress works for the horn at the 2018 College National Finals Rodeo in Casper, Wyo.
- PADON BRAY
Alumna Jackie Hobbs-Crawford made history at the NFR breakaway roping world championship at Globe Life Field, taking the event’s inaugural title in December.
“It was nerve-racking because obviously what a big thing this is and will go down in history,” she said. “Of course you have nerves, but if you can turn those nerves into positive energy and use them in the right direction, it is a good thing.”
Her title was the Stephenville resident’s 20th world championship and her third in breakaway roping, and it happened with Jackie carrying an extra rider. She was six months pregnant.
Fourteen riders and ropers with Tarleton ties qualified for the NFR in 2020, including bareback riders Champion and Leighton Berry; saddle bronc riders Brody Cress, Jacobs Crawley and Isaac Diaz; tie-down ropers Haven Meged and Timber Moore; team roping heelers Shay Dixon Carroll and Paden Bray; breakaway ropers Hobbs-Crawford, Eppert and J.J. Hampton; steer wrestler Jace Melvin; and barrel racer Cheyenne Wimberley.
One of the hottest cowboys in the PRCA is Tarleton graduate Bray, a team roping heeler, who in 2019 was named Resistol Rookie of the Year by the PRCA and finished just out of the standings for the National Finals Rodeo.
A year later he nailed 11th place in the world and earned his first spot in the NFR, which for the first time was held in Arlington.
“I don’t think you can work hard enough or practice enough if you want to be the best,” Bray said. “Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan are the best at what they do, not just because of their talent but because they put in lots of hard work to go with their natural talent.
“That’s what made them great. Around here, against the best in the world, it demands the best of everybody. Let the work get you ready for competition.”
- BOB DOTY
RODEO HOME
Tarleton rodeo got a new home in 2020. The 100plus member team is now at home at the former Downunder Horsemanship Ranch near Stephenville.
Tarleton’s elite rodeo program got new digs last winter and is now headquartered on the Downunder Horsemanship Ranch, just a stone’s throw from the university’s Stephenville campus.
Longtime Tarleton supporters Brad and Nancy Allen bought a portion of the iconic ranch last fall after world-renowned horse trainer Clinton Anderson switched his focus to training and showing performance horses in Arkansas.
Tarleton will lease a portion of the ranch — 47 of the 80 acres — with hopes to buy the property pending approval by The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents and the outcome of a successful fundraising campaign.
The Tarleton State College women’s rodeo team set a historic precedent by winning consecutive national championships in 1969, 1970 and 1971, and in 2020 the seven women who made up those teams — Karen Walls, Sally Preston, Angie Watts Averhoff, Vicki Higgins Emerson, Connie Wilkinson Wood, Sharon Harrison Youngblood and Martha Tompkins Jordan — were named to the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame.
Besides earning three straight National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association team titles, four of the women earned individual event crowns. Watts was goat tying champion, and Preston won the breakaway roping title in 1969; Wilkinson was the nation’s top collegiate barrel racer in 1970; and 1971 saw Wright finish first in the country in barrel racing.
Their achievements were recognized by induction into Tarleton’s Rodeo Hall of Fame in 2012 and into the Stephenville Cowboy Capital Walk of Fame in 2000.
Tarleton’s rodeo team is one of the largest in the nation with more than 100 card-carrying members. The tradition and the history of excellence behind wearing the purple vest put Tarleton in the conversation with other dominant sports programs in the nation.
“Talk about Duke in college basketball, Alabama in college football, that kind of success spreads,” said former coach and Hall of Fame member Bob Doty. “You get to be known as a rodeo school like Alabama is known as a football school.”
REAL CHAMPIONS ARE TARLETON TEXANS
In a history stretching back to 1947, Tarleton State University rodeo boasts seven national team titles and 28 individual CNFR champions.
Champions like alumna Jackie Hobbs-Crawford, who made history at this year’s Wrangler National Finals Breakaway Roping competition, taking the event’s inaugural crown and scoring her 20th world title.
By the time Jackie graduated from Tarleton, she had three NIRA individual national titles and two team crowns, earning induction into the university’s Rodeo Hall of Fame.
