Bull riding and barrel racing: A college rodeo in Wisconsin ropes the Yellowstone spirit

RIVER FALLS, Wisconsin — Tyler Gardner walks and talks like a cowboy. Long, lean, clad in denim, he sprinkles "shucks" into his everyday speech and tips his cowboy hat as a sign of respect.

On a recent weekend in September, Gardner galloped his horse around the warm-up arena while country music played from his phone.

“Hey, buddy,” he whispered to Roger, brushing the back of his horse's coat. “You ready?”

Gardner, a University of Wisconsin-River Falls senior, had practiced for months for this moment. So had his teammates.

They are part of the only college rodeo team in Wisconsin that competes in barrel racing, bull riding and more.

But look past the boots, button-down shirt and spurs, all part of the team uniform. Gardner came to campus with no ranching background. He never had horses, never even rode one as a kid.

Yet there he was, saddled up and waiting in the box for his turn. He took a breath just before the door dropped.

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MooU: Cowtown meets college town

There's a reason some UW-River Falls alumni refer to their alma mater as MooU. After the first week of classes every fall, students head to the campus farm for Friday night lights at the Falcon Frontier rodeo.

The crowds carry sweatshirts, seat pads and blankets bundled in their arms. Some arrive more than an hour before the rodeo begins, scoping out the best seats in the bleachers. Latecomers stand for the three-hour event, which brings about 300 competitors and 500 animals to River Falls.

Turnout topped 3,500 on the weekend of Sept. 8 and 9, not bad for a campus of 5,000 in a city of 16,000. Tickets cover the cost of producing the $45,000 event.

Each of the two dozen team members at UW-River Falls must secure at least $800 in sponsorships from local businesses, which help fund the team's travel to compete at other schools in the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association.

Now in its 58th year, the rodeo is a natural fit for UW-River Falls. More than 600 students study animal science, by far the biggest major on campus; a third of those students specialize in equine studies.

Some on the rodeo team grew up with horses and competed in high school rodeos. Hauling their horse to campus felt no different than a futon.

"Like most 8-year-olds, I went through a pony phase," said sophomore barrel racer Remi Elbert. "But I guess I just stuck with it. It became sort of addicting."

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Rodeo rookies can make the team at UW-River Falls

Some UW-River Falls students come to campus with no rodeo experience, but they work their way onto the team. That wouldn't be possible at some of the university's competitors.

Some of them — South Dakota State, North Dakota State, Iowa State — are NCAA Division I schools, meaning they can offer athletic scholarships to recruit the best students. Other competitors are community colleges that can incorporate rodeo into their athletic programs, providing their teams with financial resources.

UW-River Falls treats rodeo as a club. The team receives just a couple thousand dollars in student fees from the university. Event logistics — like securing animals from the stock contractor and ordering port-a-potties — fall to Gardner, the team vice president and an agricultural business major.

Gardner, 23, grew up on a cranberry farm in Pittsville, Wisconsin, population 822. College wasn't on his radar in high school. Neither of his parents finished a four-year degree.

He tried a year of technical college, but COVID-19 made it feel meaningless. It was hard to stay connected, both to his coursework and with classmates.

Only after he enrolled at UW-River Falls did he learn about the rodeo team. He got involved and was initially drawn to the adrenaline rush of bull riding. It was a short affair lasting just two tries.

"All I remember is getting in the chute, the door drops and I’m on the ground, like, right away," he said. "That was the end of that.”

Gardner switched to team roping, an event where two cowboys barrel down the arena on their horses while trying to lasso a steer's horns and back legs faster than the competition.

Having his own horse would open the door to competition. Gardner took the plunge last winter, driving 18 hours down to Texas with money he'd saved from summers spent truck driving.

"I guess I wouldn’t call it crazy," he said about buying his horse. "I’d call it chasing a passion."

Gardner's first rodeo attempt last spring ended in defeat. He hoped to redeem himself this fall.

Students train horses, which can reduce costs

Rodeo is an expensive hobby.

Students can offset the cost by buying horses young, training them and selling, said Nathan O'Connor, a UW-River Falls equine instructor and rodeo team faculty adviser. Barrel racing horses can easily go for $30,000.

O'Connor teaches students how to train horses in his Advanced Western Horsemanship class. Some have turned it into a career.

UW-River Falls junior Jenna Stockinger, for example, isn't competing in the fall rodeo season because she's training her new horse who's "a bit of a knucklehead."

Stockinger rode a different horse as part of her privileges as the 2023 Rodeo Queen. She earned the title after an "intense competition" involving a personal interview, rodeo knowledge quiz and riding test.

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As the national anthem blared through the speakers, the crowd stood. The music built. Stockinger's horse trotted around the arena, American flag flapping in the wind.

"O'er the land of the free and the home of the braaaave!" a singer crooned into the mic.

Bareback riding reminds crowd of rodeo's dangers

The first event of the night: bareback riding. Students were strapped in rigging without a saddle, the horse trying to fling them off as their bodies flail back and forth like balloon men at a car dealership.

Jackson Lunn, of Mid-Plains (Nebraska) Community College, got tangled in the rigging when he fell. The horse kept running, dragging him for 32 seconds.

The crowd fell silent. They wanted to look away but couldn’t, hoping he was OK.

He was, eventually. But hobbling out of the arena, the rider was a reminder about the danger of the rodeo. It's a sport where injuries and deaths do occur.

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The floodlights flicked on a little before 7:30 p.m. in the middle of steer wrestling.

Then came the goat tying, tie-down roping, saddle bronc riding.

The college boot scramble brought nearly a hundred students from the stands for a silly contest.

The rodeo clown kept the crowd laughing. The country music kept the toes tapping.

Taking in the scene was Michael Orth, the new dean of the university's agricultural college.

Orth came from Texas Tech, which he said has one of the best college rodeos in the country. Last year's event brought in $750,000 and was nationally televised to 400,000 viewers.

It wasn't always like that. When Orth arrived in Lubbock, Texas, the rodeo was a money drain, and he said he considered ending it. But then he hired one of the world's best tie-down ropers as coach, a man whom he credits with turning the team into what it is today.

"Extracurriculars can be just as or even more important than classroom learning, and rodeo is one of the best out there to help develop students," he said. "What I found at Texas Tech and what I’m sure I’ll find here are some of the most resilient students on campus are in rodeo."

A second roping attempt ends in defeat

It was over for Gardner in less than three seconds.

Roger pounded down the arena, kicking up dust. Gardner got his rope into position. He swung it toward the steer but failed to catch it around the animal's horns, taking him and his partner out of contention for the coveted belt buckle.

But the horseman still held his head high. He was back in the saddle the next day, practicing for his next run.

When Gardner graduates in spring, he'll head home to work at the family cranberry marsh. But he wants to continue roping as a hobby, maybe even compete in amateur rodeos.

Finding rodeo at UW-River Falls gave him purpose and perspective, he said. It's taught him discipline and determination.

"It's been an interesting journey and a lot of fun," he said. "Isn't that what college is about?"

Contact Kelly Meyerhofer at kmeyerhofer@gannett.com. Follow her on X at @KellyMeyerhofer.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Where the Wild West meets America's dairyland: College rodeo at MooU