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Rodeo Club rounds up audience
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Mention sports at Boise State and it conjures up images of blue turf rather than bucking bulls, but the BSU Rodeo Club plans to dispel this image by drawing a bigger audience this spring.
The club is moving its annual rodeo from Caldwell to the Idaho Center in April.
Rodeo Club President, Nathaniel Davis said he hopes the new location draws a larger audience.
“Students really don’t even know we have a Rodeo Club, and it’s sort of frustrating,” Davis said.
The club started planning for the April rodeo in October. Plans include hiring contractors, providing stock and making sure an ambulance is on site during the night of the event.
The club requires about $10,000 to host a rodeo. Davis said money is tight this year since the club counts on support from local small businesses.
“It’s been tough since no one wants to give us any money,” said Davis, “No one has the budget for it.”
Because rodeo is not an intercollegiate sport at BSU, it cannot tap into the resources provided to football and volleyball.
According to Davis, the funding shortage does not prevent the club from succeeding as a team.
Boise State women’s rodeo team ranks sixth in the Rocky Mountain region and men come are in eighth.
Rodeo was the number one sports club of the year in 1989. Former members, Dee Pickett and Dan Roeser, have gone on to compete
nationally.
Davis said the club’s advisory board wants to make scholarships available to cover tuition, books, housing for students and boarding for their horses.
“While we’re [planning for the rodeo] we also have to compete in all of the other rodeos and get school work done,” Davis said.
As part of the Rocky Mountain Region of the Intercollegiate Rodeo Association, club members travel across Idaho, Utah and Nevada for competition.
The Rodeo Club has 15 members, 13 of whom regularly compete. Most members have previous riding experience; only two did not have experience prior to joining the club. These members help plan the events, but have not competed.
The club has more then tripled in size since last year when there were only three active members.
“Rodeo world keeps getting bigger and bigger, and it’s not just kids from out in the sticks,” Davis said.
Rodeos consist of many events, highlights include team-roping and bronc-busting. The former is a popular game of skill, but the latter, in which a cowboy tries to stay on a bucking horse without a saddle for eight seconds or more, is more widely recognizable. Another popular feature is the opening, during which children “mutton-bust,” in other words, the kids ride around on sheep.
Jeremy Branstad, The Arbiter
