In the chilly holding area at the back of the arena, standing in a group of riders and horses, Gabby Graham, a freshman from New York, puts the royal blue blinkers on her one-eyed horse. “His vision is already at 50% but we like to make that less,” she said. “He’s gotta run straight anyways.” 

Her joke evokes a giggle from her teammate, who stands next to her, helping to get the horse prepared for a long night of work. 

Graham’s light-hearted comment is a stark contrast to the grittiness of the sport, but also perfectly captures the spirit of rodeo. With a sport as mentally tough, and physically straining as rodeo is, the riders of the Murray State University Rodeo Team seem to understand the importance of making each other smile even in the stressful environment of competition. 

Many riders in the college circuit don’t just compete for their team, but will enter rodeos as an individual, keeping them in constant “training mode.” They spend their weekends on the road, hauling not only themselves but their horses from state to state, as they travel around the southeastern part of the country, allowing for little downtime in their training and life as a whole.

“The sport of rodeo is something that never stops,” sophomore rider Zoey Pozen said. “There is always somewhere you can go and there’s always somewhere you can enter, so you are kinda constantly preparing.” 

This constant travel was the cause for a phone conversation with senior Lane Deckard instead of an in-person interview for this story, but neither he, nor his teammates, complained. Instead, they only talked of the joy that rodeo has given them and the love they have for a sport that has become their way of life.  

For some, the rodeo lifestyle is one they are born into. This is the case for both Pozen and Graham, who’ve grown up around the sport. For others, such as Deckard, rodeo is something they discovered on their own, not a world they grew up in but one they grew into. Similar to Deckard, Head Coach Matt Papszycki was the first in his family to venture into the sport. 

Papszycki grew up in northern Indiana, on his family farm where they grew crops and raised cattle. Even before he started coaching the team, Papszycki had strong ties to Murray, Kentucky. It is because of Murray, and the rodeo scene here, that he was recruited by the University of Tennessee-Martin, where he competed in bareback and bull riding. 

“They used to have a high school rodeo after the college rodeo,” Papszycki said. “That’s what got me down here.” Those high school rodeos are what led him to a successful college career, in which Papszyki would go on to compete in the College National Finals Rodeo three years in a row. His time in college is also when Papszycki started dating his now wife, who had their son, whose interest in rodeo would get him into coaching.

A shocking 17 hours is how far freshman Graham had to go to find a school that not only offered her chosen program, but would give her the opportunity to compete in college rodeo. 

Graham has attended rodeos since birth, literally. “I was actually heading to a rodeo a week after I was born,” she said. 

The statement, though a bit kooky, is no surprise, as her family puts on multiple rodeos per year all across her home state of New York. “We put on like 40 rodeos in the summer, just at our own place. But then we do this thing called road shows where we take all our equipment and our stock and basically rodeo every week.” 

Doing her family rodeos is how Graham got her start, now she competes in all four events offered to female riders: goat tying, breakaway roping, team roping and barrel racing.

 Similar to Graham, sophomore Zoey Pozen also grew up in the rodeo world. Pozen’s background with horses is vast, as she has experience in the English riding style, as well as Western pleasure, and of course, rodeo. Even though he competed in rodeo for years, Pozen’s father had no desire for his children to follow in his footsteps. After a bad shoulder injury took her father out of the game in 2008, he swore off the sport, but when his kids asked to try it out, he decided he couldn’t stop them. Now Pozen competes for the rodeo team in both the breakaway roping and team roping events, something she said she has always been drawn to.

But not all rodeo journeys start similarly, as is the case for senior Lane Deckard, who had no exposure to the sport before taking it up in junior high. “When I was younger, I always kind of liked horses, but never really had the opportunity to get around them,” Deckard explained. “I had became friends with a buddy… They used to have horses and they did rodeo… and ever since then I’ve pretty much done it.”

Deckard, who competes in steer wrestling and bull riding, doesn’t consider himself to go “as hard” as some of his other teammates but also enters rodeos year-round. 

When Papszycki left the rodeo scene, he decided to fully leave the sport behind. 

“I never went to a rodeo [during that time], I went fishing,” he said. “Until one day my son said ‘I wanna do it’ and [I was like] ‘No you don’t’ and now I’m coaching.” 

It was a natural progression for Papszycki, who had previously coached other teams of sports his son played while growing up. “I wasn’t planning on it, on [taking] this road. He sent me down the road and this is where I’m at,” Papszycki said.  

 

 

Papszycki’s son, Tate, now competes in bareback riding for the team, following in his father’s footsteps.

If you’ve ever been to a rodeo, you’ve seen how hardcore the sport actually is. As if speeding around on horseback wasn’t hard enough, many of these athletes are throwing themselves off of said horses to tie down a goat or wrestle a steer to the ground. Some events even involve holding on to a bucking animal, hoping to stay on for eight seconds. It’s no surprise these riders need to be fit, but rodeo also involves a mental toughness unlike any other sport.

“Anybody could technically go and do it, and do it right,” Deckard said. “But if you don’t have the right state of mind, and have your head on right, it’s really hard.” 

Riders expressed just how hard the mental aspect of the sport is, stating the importance of keeping a clear head as they compete. Many riders compete in multiple events, and many struggle to leave their negative baggage behind as they compete in their next event. 

“You have to stay clear-minded because if you drag it into your next event, it’s just gonna continue on and that will take a big downward spiral,” Graham said. “You’re there for that event and that purpose and when you step on that next horse to go to your next event, your purpose needs to reset.” But the task of clearing your head for each event is easier said than done.

As a self-proclaimed pessimist, Pozen finds the mental aspect of the sport the toughest to battle. “I always feel like nothing I ever do is correct, nothing I ever do is good enough… I see that a lot in my rodeo and I think that’s something that I struggle with a lot,” Pozen said. “I try and do different things here and there to try and fix it, but it’s tough… Especially with a sport like this that’s so expensive.” 

A big reason many of these athletes face mental hurdles could be the money aspect of the sport. 

“In our world, people don’t like to talk about finances,” said Pozen, when talking about her mental struggles with the sport. 

Papszycki agreed with Pozen, also commenting on how the financial aspect of the sport plays a part in the mental struggles of his athletes. But Papszycki has a simple philosophy for this. He preaches the importance of financial health as well as physical and mental health.

“You have to put some money aside to where you don’t get this close and all of a sudden [you] don’t have money,” he said. “You’ve gotta prepare for it. [Otherwise] that just puts way too much stress on everything, especially the mental game.” 

So, with all the stresses of rodeo, the physical strain, the financial worry and the mental struggles, what keeps these athletes going? How are they able to push past all their worries and meet their potential in a sport that seems to be rooting against them? Most of the time rodeo is not against them, but many in the community want to see others succeed. In no rodeo environment is this truer than in the college rodeo world. Pozen, Graham and Deckard all spoke about the supportive atmosphere they experience from not only their teammates, but the rest of the college rodeo community. 

Members of the MSU Rodeo Team are constantly together. They not only spend hours driving to and from rodeos together, but practice together, do homework together and overall support each other. 

This aspect is a big reason Pozen enjoys college rodeo so much. “The friendships you’ll [make] on a rodeo team in college are kind of like no other in a sense,” Pozen said. 

And she is not the only team member who believes this. 

“When you come out and you’re running through the shoots and everyone is yelling your name and cheering for you, no matter if you do good or bad, [that] is very uplifting,” Graham said. 

The shoot opens, letting free a large black bull with Deckard on its back. The animal tosses him around, but he moves in time with each buck the bull makes. Eight seconds later, Deckard is back on his feet, smiling after a successful ride. As he walks out of the arena, those around him congratulate him with fistbumps and pats on the back. It is small gestures like these that mean so much in a sport meant to break you down.