About: Ted

LAS VEGAS – Logan Medlin has said one of the greatest aspects of roping with Coleman Proctor is the Oklahoman’s propensity to stay positive even in tough situations. The team ropers faced them two nights in a row when Proctor was unable to secure his head loop onto their steers’ during the sixth and seventh rounds of the National Finals Rodeo. Proctor’s personality shined, though, and instead of staying in the dumps, he rebounded. Proctor and Medlin stopped the clock in a Round 8 record-tying 3.5-second run to win Thursday’s eighth round, with $28,914 each. Those two no-times may have cost the tandem a shot at the world championship, but the cash keeps adding up. They have earned $77,563 over eight nights in Las Vegas. Both are fifth in their respective world standings. “It’s been a blast,” said Proctor of Pryor, Oklahoma. “It has been really fun and special for me as a guy that grew up dreaming of going to the National Finals to seeing your kids grow up in the stands of the National Finals. We brought Stella out here when she was 6 weeks old, and now she’s 5. Caymbree came along, and she’s 3. “They are starting to understand it. Stella actually told me tonight that it was time to get a victory lap and ride in the van to the South Point, because we got one of those limo vans the last time. I said, ‘Yes, baby, we will try to get it.’ It has been special having your family and friends with you. It’s even more special when your family believes in you as much as mine does.” They have reason to believe in him. It’s been about 15 years since he attended Northwestern Oklahoma State University and competed on the school’s rodeo team. He didn’t finish his degree then, but over the last year, he has taken online classes to finish what he started. Dr. David Pecha, the executive vice president at Northwestern, arrived in Las Vegas this week to take in the NFR. While here, he presented Proctor with the degree he worked so hard to finally obtain. It was a special moment for him and his family. It also served as a way to keep his mind right for the job at hand. “It’s an immense amount of pressure out here,” Proctor said. “I had a dear friend – my buddy, Justin Turner, who started hauling me when I was 13 – I texted him (Wednesday) night and sounded off my frustrations about what I thought was going on. He told me to just relax and not overthink it, just get back to doing what I do and what I did the first few rounds. “I think looking at every opportunity you have, even a setback, that is just an opportunity for a comeback.” That positivity rings, whether he’s doing the pre-show on the Purina stage each night in front of the Thomas & Mack Center or backing in the box hoping to rope nearly $29,000 a night. It’s part of his fabric, which has been woven by those around him. “It comes down to all the support you get from back home,” Proctor said. “I have the greatest fans, family and friends. Not one has sent something to knock you while you’re down. They’re all encouraging you, and they are always trying to be a light to you. I’m just really thankful for that.”

LAS VEGAS – Through 18 rounds of the National Finals Rodeo, Cole Franks has been chomping at the bit in hopes of earning his first go-round victory. He was within a whisker of it Thursday night, riding Bridwell Rodeo’s Girl Crush for 87 points to finish in a three-way tie for second place. Instead, Texan Leighton Berry took the round with an 88-point ride, but Franks came away with $17,410 for doing his part. “I was getting pretty antsy toward the end,” Franks said as he watched the action; Berry was the third-to-last bareback rider to compete. “He rode good and had a really good horse. That’s part of the game. You can’t win everything. There are always better horses, better rides somewhere.” Winning NFR go-rounds is tough business. Only the top 15 contestants in each event at the conclusion of the regular season advance to Las Vegas, and it’s difficult to beat all of them on a given night. For his part, Franks has ridden all of his horses and placed seven out of eight nights. He has pushed his NFR earnings to more than $80,000 and stands sixth in the world standings with just shy of $200,000. “You just have to take them one at a time,” he said. “You keep nodding your head, keep getting on what you’re getting on that day and don’t worry about anything else.” It’s working. He has scored 679 cumulative points on his eight rides and is in a tie with Californian R.C. Landingham for second in the aggregate race. They are 14 points behind the leader, Jess Pope, who travels the rodeo trail with Franks and Tim O’Connell. In fact, Pope and Landingham also scored 87 points to join Franks in the No. 2 position in the go-round. “That horse is kind of a sleeper in that pen,” said Franks of Clarendon, Texas. “I was a little nervous going into this. Leighton Berry was helping me and said, ‘You know, this thing feels a lot better than people think. “That horse feels really good. He is strong. He is all there, but he feels really good and is a lot of fun to get on.” With two nights of the NFR left, his place in the aggregate race is valuable. If he were to finish alone in second place, it would be worth a bonus of $60,159 when Saturday’s 10th round comes to an end. Third place pays nearly $48,000. “I’m still going for the round wins,” Franks said. “If that takes me out of the average, if I make a bobble, if I do get bucked off something, at least I know I was going for it.”

LAS VEGAS – Sometimes the best heroics in sports come with second-half rallies. Steer wrestler J.D. Struxness is having one of those experiences at the National Finals Rodeo. After collecting just one paycheck through the first five rounds, he placed for the third straight night with a 4.3-second run to finish in a tie for sixth place in Thursday’s eighth go-round. While it wasn’t worth much – third place pays $4,664, so he gets a third of that for his efforts – it did boost his NFR earnings to nearly $50,000. The biggest change came in the fifth round, when he dismounted Tyson, Curtis Cassidy’s Steer Wrestling Horse of the Year and opted for Ringo Robinson’s horse, Monroe. The move has paid great dividends, and it looks to continue through the final two nights of the 2020 ProRodeo season. After settling with a no-time in Round 4, he and Monroe stopped the clock in 5.0 seconds. It didn’t make him any money, but it was a big step forward. Not only that, but it was the first time the two had been matched together and in the middle of the biggest competition of the year. It takes a little time for two partners to mesh. Because the cowboys already riding Monroe were having success and were using veteran Matt Reeves as their hazer, Struxness sought out the eight-time NFR qualifier to help line out his steers on the yellow horse. In addition to competing inside the Thomas & Mack Center, Reeves has been one of the pre-eminent hazers in the game and has lined out hundreds of steers inside the storied home of the NFR. The combination is working. Most of Struxness’ earnings have come in the last three go-rounds. He sits seventh in the world standings with just two nights left in Las Vegas.

LAS VEGAS – As rodeo relates to other sports, it’s hard to put a comparison for bareback riders. Sure, steer wrestlers are the linebackers of football, and tie-down ropers are akin to 3-point shooters in basketball, but bareback riders? “I think it is every sport of a major athlete combined into one,” said Pope, who rode Muddy Creek Pro Rodeo’s Pejuta Haka for 87 points to finish in a three-way tie for second place in Thursday’s eighth go-round. “Everything about this is different. It is all fast, explosive stuff. You’ve got to be flexed out while you’re trying to explode while taking shots in the back of the head like a boxer. “You have to be agile. You have to be able to keep ahold of (the horses) and track then where they are going like you’re in baseball, but then you have to be able to take a hit like a football, too. I think you combine all of them together, and that’s how you get a bareback rider.” It’s also similar to a 98-pound wrestler grappling the biggest guy on the opposing team. “I think it’s pretty comparable,” he said. “They outweigh us by four or five times.” Pope may be the lightweight in the match-ups, but he’s playing his game like a heavyweight champion. His ride Thursday netted him another $17,410 and pushed his Las Vegas earnings to nearly $150,000. He is the king of the bareback riding mountain with two nights remaining on the 2022 season. He has earned $308,387 so far and owns a lead of more than $66,000 over the No. 2 man, Texan Leighton Berry. He is also No. 1 in the NFR aggregate race with 693 cumulative points on eight rides. As a two-time average champion in his only other trips to the finale, he understands just how special that title is. In ProRodeo, it is the second-most cherished prize behind the world championship. Whatever he earns, he knows he has a great team to make it all happen. “It takes a village to be able to rodeo,” said Pope, 24, of Waverly, Kansas. “To be able to have such a big support system – it is people to talk to for encouragement and everything – it gives a guy confidence and makes you feel a hell of a lot better to know you have all those people in your corner. “It’s a long 10 days. It’s hard. It’s easy to get something put in your brain and make things look negatively, so it’s nice to be able to talk to people that are always building you up.” That support system also includes handling the chores back home. Friends help, but his younger brothers, Ty and Judd, flew back home to take care of everything before returning Thursday; a sponsor, the Graham family from Garnett, Kansas, also helped with the ranching tasks. “We’ve got cows and horses and dogs and everything else at home that need to be tended to,” he said. “Without them, it would be a heck of a lot harder to be out here.” He’s also received support from his fiancé, Sydney Odle, whom he will marry in May. She’s been a driving force behind a lot of his success this year, especially the last couple of weeks. “She’s always in my corner, and she always has something to say,” Pope said. “She is always building me up. She is really competitive. One thing I’m really thankful for is she ain’t scared to lead a prayer before I leave the hotel room, before I get on and everything else. Without her, I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today.”

LAS VEGAS – It may have been an inside joke, but it’s turned into the tune of magic being made at the National Finals Rodeo. After he made an 89-point, seventh round-winning ride on Big Stone Rodeo’s Mayhem, bareback rider Jess Pope danced a little jig right there in the dirt. When sound director Benje Bendele turned up the “Macarena,” Pope made the appropriate moves that went along with the song that debuted in 1996. That was two years before he was born, but Pope’s moves to the music were just part of his celebration of a second go-round victory and his sixth night of placing through seven go-rounds of the National Finals Rodeo. “This year at Caldwell (Idaho), me and Tim (O’Connell) didn’t have anywhere to be the next day, so we were just hanging out,” Pope said. “The announcer was Randy Corley, and we were trying to distract Randy as much as possible. Him and Benje started messing with us back, and they played the ‘Macarena.’ “Then Randy asked over the (loud speaker) for a Cowboy Channel representative to come behind the bucking chutes. There we were stuck having to do the ‘Macarena’ on national TV. I’m probably the worst dancer in the world, but when they play it, I’ve got to do it.” He’s dancing his way to a Montana Silversmiths gold buckle. The $28,914 he earned Wednesday night pushed his NFR earnings to $131,717 and his season salary to $290,976. He is also first in the all-important average race with a cumulative score of 606 points on seven rides. His closest competitor in the average is six-time world champion Kaycee Feild, who is 11.5 points behind. Field is also the No. 2 man in the world standings, and Pope owns a lead of nearly $74,000 heading into the final three nights of the ProRodeo campaign. “I’ve had a blast this whole week,” said Pope, a two-time NFR average champion who finished second in the world standings last year and third the year before. “Things have been going good for me so far. We’ve got three more, so we’re going to see what happens.” It’s been a building process for the cowboy from Waverly, Kansas, who came into the NFR in second place after a tight race for the lead in the world standings with Cole Reiner. Both knew the world title would come down to what happened in Las Vegas. Pope’s ride on Mayhem was just another bit of evidence to the type of week he is having. “There are a lot of guys that have troubles with him, and there are a lot of guys who really get along with him,” he said of the bronc. “You have to be doing everything right to make it work. “My confidence is the same as when I got here. All 15 of us have the same kind of confidence. We all know that we are good, because if we weren’t good, we wouldn’t be here. With success, you build off it. It makes it more exciting and makes you want to come back for more.” Pope is coming back for more. This is his second go-round buckle of this NFR, and he has more buckles he hopes to take away from Las Vegas by the time this week is complete.