Rodeo Life

Author: C.J. Aragon

  • College Rodeo Coaches

    article by C.J. Aragon,
    Odessa College Rodeo Coach

    WEB_IMG_2618College Rodeo Coaches are a small fraternity that I am proud to be a part of. There are not very many college rodeo coaches around the country and they do not get the recognition or pay that their counterparts in sports like basketball and football do. However just because we aren’t paid on the same level as many other college coaches it is by no means an indicator of our passion for the sport of rodeo.
    I know many great college rodeo coaches across the country, these coaches run programs from small community colleges to major universities. Although the students may only be influenced by their coach for one to four years the impact can last much longer than that. All of the coaches I respect want to see their students be successful in the arena and in life.
    There are a few things I think many of our students need to realize about college rodeo coaches and coaches in general.
    If you are in our program, we want you to do well. When we recruited you to our program we saw potential based on your past performances. You obviously saw value in the program as well or you wouldn’t have made the choice to join the program. There will be ups and downs along the way but your coach will always be in your corner and looks forward to seeing you do well.
    What many students need to realize about coaches is that we have watched many students be successful and some fail. We can help with from our past experiences. We have in a sense been there, done that.
    Just because you had success at the high school level does not guarantee that you will be successful on the college or professional level. In my experience I have watched former High School National Champions have limited success on the college and professional level, I have also witnessed students who never qualified for the High School National Finals Rodeo have tremendous success at the college and professional level. Their achievements had to do with their coachability and their ability to communicate with their coach.
    Which brings us right back around to college rodeo coaches. Your rodeo coach can offer you suggestions on what skills you need to improve on. Your coach can give you feedback on what they see you do in competition and in the practice pen. They offer tips and training exercises for you to work on. Coaches can give you structure to your practices and workouts. You will not always like what your coach has to say. You may not always like what your coach has you do, but rest assured that your coach is working help you achieve your goals.
    Coaches can do a lot for you, they can be a great resource if you choose to use them.
    The most successful and most improved students in any sports programs are the ones who take the small bits coaches offer and apply them daily. Be Coachable!
    C.J. Aragon is the Rodeo Coach at Odessa College and has a Master’s Degree in Coaching Education. He has been an invited speaker to the Global Coaches Seminar at Ohio University working with coaches in all sports from around the country.

  • It’s A Team Thing

    WEB_IMG_2618“The people we surround ourselves with either raise or lower our standards. They either help us become the best version of ourselves or encourage us to become lesser versions of ourselves. We become like our friends. No man becomes great on his own. No woman becomes great on her own. The people around them help to make them great.
    We all need people in our lives who raise our standards, remind us of our essential purpose, and challenge us to become the best version of ourselves.”
    I saw this quote the other day and it truly fits with most athletes. It is defiantly true in for college rodeo students, I have watched it firsthand. I have watched how contagious students with great positive attitude and a tremendous work ethic can elevate those around them. Great attitudes and work can be contagious, it can lead everyone involved to become part of something greater than themselves.
    It is a team thing.
    Who is on your team? Who have you surrounded yourself with? Are your friends and teammates making you better? Are you making them better?
    Are the people around you successful? If you want to improve quickly look for successful people in your chosen area and then join them. Watch them and learn from them. How do they practice? How do they handle business at the rodeos?  By surrounding yourself with successful people you will find out the small things they do differently than others and how the small details can lead to bigger and better results for you in the future. Find successful people and learn from them.
    Are you surrounded by people with a positive attitude? A positive attitude is truly one of the most contagious things around. Some of the best student athletes I have ever coached had marginal talent and a phenomenal positive attitudes. It affects everyone around them teammates, competitors and even coaches. These people are easy to spot, and every successful team has a few around. If you can’t find someone with a great positive attitude, be that person with the positive attitude.
    Every successful team also has the hard workers. The hard workers, the ones who show up early, stay late and do more than is asked of them. I think it is funny how many people who arrive late, leave early and get by, refer to the hard workers as “Lucky” when they get beat by them. Don’t let someone beat you because they simply outworked you. Find the hardest working teammates and join them.
    For your team to truly be effective you need the realist. The coach or mentor. It is critical that you have this person in your group, someone who will tell you what you need to hear when you don’t want to hear it. Someone who will support you on your efforts to accomplish your goals.  This is the person who challenges you, who forces you to be better, and will hold you to a higher standard.
    Being successful is a team thing. Choose a good team and be a good teammate you will be impressed with the results.

  • Just Breathe

    WEB_IMG_2618I am a big fan of the motivational speaker Eric Thomas.  If you don’t know who he is you need to look him up and watch some of his videos.
    There are a few of his videos I show every team.  The first is his video on “How bad do you want it”  If you haven’t seen it I will strongly recommend that you do before you read any further.
    Since you are still reading I hope that you have watched his video.  The message is great, when you want to succeed as bad as you want to breath you will be successful.  It is a great motivational video.
    When we watch the video in the group the majority of the students are pumped up and excited to practice, for at least a day or two.  It is easy to see the students that understood the message in the video. After the excitement and the message has worn off the practice energy level and intensity levels begin to fall off for most students.  It is easy to be motivated or excited for a practice or two, anyone can do that.  Those college contestants who are still competing in June have found a way to motivate themselves every day regardless of their daily distractions.
    From experience I would say that there is a big majority of the contestants that are motivated easily for a day or two.  Usually they somehow find that motivation the day’s right before the rodeo.  These are the guys that entered and think that they can be competitive with just a day or two of practice.  This is the group doing CPR on their goals. There is not really any other way to describe it.  It may work to save you to fight another day, but then again it might not.   A chance a lot are willing to take.
    The message of the video was “When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe you will be successful.”  Breathing is simple, a little thing you do every day.  Working towards your goals can be just as easy, just a little effort every day.  It will keep you alive, a little effort can keep your goals alive as well.
    Being successful in the arena, in the classroom and in life is just like breathing.  Whatever you want to be successful at you will find a way to do every day. You breathe every minute of every day, it keeps you alive. You can’t breathe part time and have it work out well, unless you know people good at CPR.
    Truly having goals doesn’t allow for taking a week off then working for two days before you compete or studying for two hours before a test.  This may work in the short term, but your long term success will be very limited.
    The successful athletes, students, and people of this world are not motivated on a part time basis, they are motivated daily.  The top rodeo contestants don’t have their parents, coaches or friends asking them to go to practice, get an extra work out in, and exercise their horses.  Their effort to be successful has become just as routine as breathing.
    Success is much like breathing.  If you keep breathing, you stay alive.  If you want to keep your goals alive and growing you find a way to work towards them on a daily basis.  It’s that simple.

    _________________________________

    C.J. Aragon was named the 2008-2011 Grand Canyon Region Coach-of-the-Year. 2014-2015 WJCAC Coach-of-the-Year, 2016 Southwest Region Coach-of-the-Year, and 2010 National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association Coach-of-the-Year.

  • The Passion of Competition

    WEB_IMG_2618This is one of my favorite times of the year. The College National Finals Rodeo and State High School Finals Rodeos going on across the country. What more can a college rodeo coach as for?
    It is always interesting to me to watch the growth and maturity of rodeo students in the years that we get to watch them. I, like many coaches, have watched some student’s progress from high school rodeo, through college rodeo and on to win World Championships.
    Some of the most talented students in high school that were highly recruited never make the jump to be competitive at the collegiate level. Others who were overlooked in high school go on to be outstanding college competitors. It is very interesting to watch and learn from. I know that in the past I have missed and recruited the very successful high school student and later had them underachieve in college. I have also regretted not recruiting many high school students.
    Over the course of the past ten years I have had the chance to visit with any current and future champions of our sport. At an early age you could tell that they were destined for great things by what they did in the arena.
    I think back to getting to visit with some current champions, many of them while they were still in high school. Most all of them were exciting to talk to because of the passion they had for competition. Winning titles didn’t motivate them every day, the love of competition motivated them.
    I think this is very important because many physically talented students are motivated by winning and at an early age winning is easy because of their physical skills. In many cases in rodeo these students do not learn or work on the fundamentals of their chosen event, they simply rely on their god given skills. For the physically gifted they don’t learn to compete, many simply just learned to win without much effort, and I don’t believe this is a good thing.
    The students who learn to love competition learn to work their way to a higher level. The drive that it takes to be successful, will then help elevate them as a competitor. These are the late bloomers. Their passion for competition will help them continue to improve. They may not have been that competitive when we watched them coming through high school, but they were always improving. In college they may have gone unnoticed for a while, but the late bloomers always have a way of eventually finding their way to the top.
    Those who love to compete will work to be better. They will find ways to improve and develop their skills on a daily basis. They will be willing to grind every day to be ready for their next opportunity to compete. They are not afraid of competition.
    Passion for competition is a great indicator for future success.

    _____________________________________________

    C.J. Aragon was named the 2008-2011 Grand Canyon Region Coach-of-the-Year. 2014-2015 WJCAC Coach-of-the-Year, 2016 Southwest Region Coach-of-the-Year, and 2010 National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association Coach-of-the-Year.

  • Attitudes

    Attitudes

    ATTITUDES

    article by C.J. Aragon,
    2010 NIRA Coach-of-the-Year, Odessa College Rodeo Coach

    As a coach one of the first lessons I learned is how many rodeo contestants approach competition.  Many young rodeo contestants have a difficult time at rodeos because they are concerned with what others are doing.  They watch the rodeo and worry about being fast enough to beat someone, or ride better than someone.
    Rodeo is indirect competition.  Indirect competition means your only competition is yourself.
    It is not like football or basketball where you line up across from your opponent. In these sports you are in direct competition with your opponent.  If you are better physically and mentally prepared you should beat them, likewise if they are better physically and mentally prepared they should beat you.  This is direct competition. Your performance does directly impact your opponent’s performance, and their actions will directly affect your performance.
    In rodeo, your performance stands alone.  No one scores for you in the timed events.  No one else marks them out in the rough stock events.  The spotlight is yours.
    Your fellow contestants cannot physically dictate your performance.  Just like you cannot dictate their performance.  I understand that in rodeo there is the variable of the livestock draw, but everyone entered has to deal with the draw.  Somedays it will be in your favor, other days the draw works against you.
    Being indirect competition the only person that can beat you is yourself.  It breaks down to be that simple.  The fewer mistakes you make the better you will do.  The more mistakes you make the more you will beat yourself.  Indirect competition is a simple concept.
    If you do your job, and do the best physically and mentally in the practice pen and competition, you have done your part.  If you are worried about beating others, you usually just end up beating yourself.  Some of the best contestants I have watched on every level from PRCA to junior rodeos do a great job of making rodeo indirect competition.  They do the best with what they have drawn each time they nod their head.  They come to the rodeo mentally and physically prepared to compete, their performance is not dictated by others.
    Some students learn this lesson early on and it shows when they reach higher levels of competition. When you are entered in a rodeo and you are taking care of your business, doing your job there is a lot less anxiety and nervousness before you compete.  When you watch contestants who do this well their performance at the rodeo looks just like their performance in the practice pen.
    To excel in indirect competition, practice like you compete and compete like you practice. To excel in rodeo, practice like you compete and compete like you practice.

    C.J. Aragon was named the 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 Grand Canyon Region Coach-of-the-Year. 2014, 2015 WJCAC Coach-of-the-Year and 2010 National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association Coach-of-the-Year.