PRORODEO Sports News - June 1, 2026

CELEBRATING THE PRCA’S 90TH ANNIVERSARY

RILEY DUVALL, FOUR-TIME NFR QUALIFIER FROM CHECOTAH, OKLA.

“For me, it was winning Salinas (Calif.) in 2021. That was the year after COVID, and Salinas was in September, the last weekend of the year. I went out there, and I think I was 22nd in the world. I had to win first almost every time to make the (NFR), and I wasn’t even going to go to Salinas. My wife kind of BS’d me into going, and I did, and then I won like $16,000 and made the (NFR) on the last day of the year. It was the highest of highs so far in my rodeo career. “I like everything about rodeo: The competing against yourself and your steer, and then hazing for people, trying to help them beat you. If I wasn’t a bulldogger, I don’t know if I’d feel that way. The camaraderie among the bulldoggers is dang sure one of the best parts of our event and about rodeo.”

TIM O’CONNELL, THREE-TIME WORLD CHAMPION BAREBACK RIDER (2016-18) FROM CASCADE, IOWA

“I would have to say my greatest rodeo memory is winning my first world title. In 2016, to run the table like that: Win the average, win the world, go in No. 1 in the world six years after I got on my first bucking horse. I remember hitting the ground, and I threw two No. 1s up and just looked at my family and started pointing to my family in the stands. “You get all that emotion that you can understand unless you’ve done it. You don’t know if you should jump up and down, if you should cry or what. You get flooded with these emotions, the most exhilarating feeling in the world. “There’s not really a terminology you can put to it, because you just start feeling these different things. You start thinking back on all the people who helped you get there to that moment to run that race, and you think of your village of people, where you come from. It’s like your whole career kind of flashes before your eyes, and you’re standing on top of the mountain for the very first time. “You’re just on Cloud 9, and then they hand you this gold buckle, and you walk out on stage, and there’s your saddle. That’s when you realize, ‘Wow, you just did it.’”

JUNE 1, 2026 PRORODEO SPORTS NEWS DIGITAL MAGAZINE 37