Rodeo is not football. But sometimes it actually resembles basketball.
Wyatt Harris, 18, competes in the Texas High School State Rodeo Finals this week at the Taylor County Expo Center’s Taylor Telecom Arena. He’s a junior from San Angelo, where he’s homeschooled, and suspects he’s been doing calf rope since he was eight.
His discipline was tying down calf ropes, and as you can imagine, throwing a lasso over the neck of a running calf while straddling a moving horse is not the easiest thing in the world. But there is more to it than that.
Like basketball, and even baseball, it takes a certain mindset to make sure everything happens in the order it’s supposed to happen.
“I guess the hardest part is trying to control your mind and slow it down and be able to compete and still be fast and have a good run while all of this is going on,” he said .
Wyatt has good teachers to help him. His two brothers, Ty and Joel Braden Harris, are both professional rope makers who compete in rodeos across the country.
Still, for Wyatt, it doesn’t always mean following her example. No matter which athlete in any sport you speak to, they will all feel that they could improve on some aspect of their ability, even if it is beyond the standards of most others.
“For me? “Oh, probably my bond,” Wyatt admits. “It’s just one of those things, it’s like shooting a basketball shot, like a free throw.
“If you do it often enough, it should be repetitive enough that you can just do it with your eyes closed.”
In the tie-down rope, after the calf has been lassoed, the competitors jump off their horse, run to the calf and, after lifting it and throwing it to its side, touch three of its legs with a short length of rope. The competitor then jumps back and the calf must remain tied up for at least 6 seconds for the run to qualify.
Wyatt had tried changing his bondage routine, but changing muscle memory is difficult.
“It’s gotten better,” he said. “My binding is getting better.”
But rodeo is about more than skill.
Sometimes luck plays a part, and it’s not always a good one. Wyatt’s calf was a little slower than his horse was used to and he never had a good angle with it. His second chance later in the afternoon had similar results.
So, aside from the jackpot chance on Wednesday night, he wasn’t there this year.
“I had to be quick, so I took a wild shot and missed,” he later said. “It’s all right. It’s happening.
“It’s hard to win every time in rodeo. So you have to enjoy it when you do it.”
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