There are two different types of cowboys—working ranch cowboys and rodeo cowboys. My parents and grandparents were ranchers and cowboys, and my dad (Raymond) roped. I didn’t make a living ranching, and raising horses and cattle. I grew up loving team roping. I consider myself a professional rodeo cowboy.
There wasn’t much rodeo on TV when I was a kid, so my knowledge of roping came from the Ropers Sports News. I heard of the icons of roping, like the Camarillos, but it was just from what I read. That was the most famous name in team roping, and to me, they were like movie stars in a class of their own. I wanted to be like those guys.
I’d look for the Ropers Sports News in the mailbox, and see pictures from the big ropings of that time in Chowchilla, Oakdale and Riverside, California. Oakdale was the Cowboy Capital of the World, and California was the cowboy hub—the bedrock of team roping.
I had an uncle, Billy Barnes, who lived in Oakdale. Perry Blagg made ropes in nearby Escalon, so Uncle Billy would go pick out ropes from Perry and ship them to me. All I remember about those old ropes back in the day is they were really waxy.
When I was a little kid growing up in the tiny hick town of Bloomfield, New Mexico, I competed against the adults. All the ropings were open ropings, and Bonanza reruns were about it on TV. That, and The Andy Griffith Show. Roping was the only sport I played. I had an old steer skull attached to a saw horse with baling wire, and I roped that dummy in the backyard nonstop.
When I was probably 12 or 13, my dad took me to a New Year’s roping down in El Paso, Texas. The Camarillos were there on their way to the rodeo in Odessa. I finally got to see them, and it was surreal to me. I was one of those kids who headed and heeled, and rode into whichever box was empty. I was in awe getting to watch Leo, Reg, Jerold (Camarillo) and HP (Evetts).
The ropings were three- and four-headers. HP was riding a paint horse he called Tarzan, and had long hair and a big mustache. He was wearing one of those little flat caps, like the British golfers wear, and he would come across there and reach. I’d never seen anybody reach before. I remember one run he reached so far that he threw his whole rope. He caught the steer, but his rope got away from him. That was my introduction to reaching.
I remember how much better those guys were than everybody else, including me. I couldn’t wait to get home to get on that dummy and practice reaching. This was how the big boys did it. I got my horse plenty ducky after that. Only having one horse at the time, that was probably not the best plan. The first thing I did when I got home was get one of those caps like HP had. Imagine going to a branding with ranch buckaroos wearing one of those, knowing that they might tie you up and leave you there for a week for that hat.
Watching HP rope motivated me, and inspired me to learn to reach. I wore that dummy out. We didn’t have an arena for the longest time, but there was a roping club in Aztec, New Mexico, and everything was 3-for-$30s—$15 a man to enter—where I grew up. I remember hearing people say, “That kid’s got a lot of natural ability.” But now that I’m older and looking back on those days, I know that the natural ability they were talking about came from jillions of hours in our backyard roping that dummy.
I was staying with one of my good friends and mentors, Popeye Boultinghouse, when Allen Bach called to see if I’d want to rope halfway through the year in 1980. I told him I’d think about it. Popeye encouraged me that night to go for it, so I wouldn’t look back later with regrets. Popeye let me ride a lot of his horses over the years, and advised me on a lot of things like a second dad. Sure glad I took Popeye’s advice on that deal. I made my first NFR that year, and my fate of being a rodeo cowboy was sealed.
—TRJ—
