PRORODEO Sports News - Sept. 9, 2026

COWBOY GRILLE

WILL EDDLEMAN W ill Eddleman, 25, of Santa Anna, Texas, is currently ranked 25th in the PRCA | Bill Fick Ford World Standings in steer roping with $25,914 in season earnings. He claimed the 2023 Resistol Steer Roping Rookie of the Year title and has continued to make his mark in 2026, highlighted by a 10.2-second run to win the second round at Cheyenne (Wyo.) Frontier Days and pocketed $6,486. His father, Don Ed Eddleman, is a longtime PRCA competitor and serves as the steer roping representative on the PRCA Contestant Executive Council. With Kensie Darst-Todd

How’d you get your start in rodeo? My grandpa didn’t grow up in rodeo, but when he went to college, he started. And so therefore, when my dad (Don Ed Eddle man) was nine or 10, he started playing with a rope.

in at home, and it was just me and him, and there was no one to team rope with. And one day he was like, “You wanna tie something down?” And I was like, “Yeah, sure. That sounds like fun.” And then, we look up two weeks later and I’m trying to tie steers on two of the horses I’m heading on. It’s very addicting in that way. I feel like a lot of people you talk to that steer rope are gonna say the same thing: once you try it once, it’s over. Did you compete in any other rodeo events growing up? Growing up, I did everything in the 10 and under. You (compete in) every event: barrels, poles, goats, everything. Then you go to the next. You do breakaway and ribbon roping and team roping and all that. I did everything. And then getting into high school, I bulldogged, team roped, broke calves, everything I could. The goal was always to win the all-around more than it was to win any individual event. What has been the biggest lesson you have learned this season? My dad preaches to me to take another swing, set my runs up, all that kinda stuff. There were a lot of times where we would come into a third round, and I’d have two down and was within a 10-second run of winning first. But I was only a 16-second run away from winning third. Learning each little lesson this year was more serious than it had been. I think what has put me in the position I have is not being that guy that’s okay with just settling down and win ning third, and I try to win. I tried to go at it and try to win first, and I would hurt myself in the process.

And then it felt like it got better with each generation. As soon as I could walk, I was playing with a rope, and I think they said when I was five or six, we entered the first junior rodeos. When did you know you could make a career out of rodeo? When I was probably either 16 or 17, I was amateur rodeoing around home as much as I could, team rop ing. I had one week where I won like $8,000. I think we won first at two rodeos and placed at two or three other ones. I was just like, “holy cow, that’s a lot of money to win.” And that was rodeo. I had won lots of money jackpotting and every body, but to win that much at one rodeo in one week for me was a lot at that time, and I was like, “Oh my gosh.” Why did you decide steer roping would be your event? So it all started really in COVID. Ev erything was shut down and we were at home and my dad steer roped. He was practicing all the time. So we were locked

26 PRORODEO SPORTS NEWS DIGITAL MAGAZINE September 9, 2026