ProRodeo Sports News | 2020 Year-End Edition | Dec.18, 2020

WRANGLER NFR NEWS & NOTES

RENO STOEBNER TOPS PERMIT STANDINGS Having a first taste of ProRodeo life during the pandemic might sound like a bad experience, but not to Reno Stoebner. The team roping header’s 2020 permit season was so successful that the $20,285 he earned would have placed him third in the 2020 PRCA | Resistol Rookie Standings. “I don’t know any different out west and up north, but everyone said we traveled further so we were spending more money but weren’t roping for the same amount of money,” Stoebner said. “I haven’t known any different, but it was fun to me. It didn’t affect me much since I didn’t know what to expect.” Meanwhile, he finished 19th in the national college rodeo standings as part of the Southwest Texas (Uvalde) Junior College rodeo team. “It was like a warm-up year for me to get my feet wet and see what it’s like rodeoing away from home before buying my card,” said Stoebner, 24. That’s what a ProRodeo permit is meant for. Similar to a driver’s permit before earning a full license, ProRodeo has a permitting process before a cowboy is a full member of the PRCA. Permit holders compete alongside fully carded members until they’ve won $1,000 in a single event. The experience turned out to be different from what Stoebner expected, but not because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s a lot different, the arenas were more of a diamond shape and there was so much variety,” Stoebner said. “In the Northwest the arenas were different, I like my steers coming to the left but in those we had to keep them straight and the barriers were longer too than what I’m used to.” He spent most of the 2020 season roping with Colton Brittain, but about a month of the summer run was spent with Lane Siggins. Stoebner’s biggest checks came from holding his own against some of the biggest names in ProRodeo at the Deadwood (S.D.) Days of ’76 Rodeo ($2,500) andWoodward (Okla.) Elks Rodeo ($2,030). Stoebner keeps two American Quarter Horse geldings on hand, a 7-year-old called Bean Dip and a 12-year-old called Jumpman. Stoebner bought his card in September for his 2021 rookie season. “The plan was always to max out this year and get my count in and see how it stacks up, and now it kind of reassured me I could do it and hang with the guys out there,” Stoebner said. “I made some adjustments with my roping and have some more to make still, but I plan to go to as many as I can.”

Baseball Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan took in Round 6 of the Finals.

PRCA ProRodeo photo by Roseanna Sales

Ryan also has been a longtime Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund board member. “I have a great respect for the participants in rodeo and what they go through and the commitment that they make,” said Ryan, 73. “Also, the fact that injury is part of this business, and so when they asked me if I would have an interest on serving on that board, I said, ‘Yeah, I really would because anything we can do to help those folks when they are down, I want to be part of that.’” Ryan also served as the Texas Rangers president and CEO from 2008-13 and was a Houston Astros special assistant from 2014-19. Ryan said ProRodeo cowboys can hold their own against other professional athletes. “I see the commitment and the condition they are in and their athletic ability,” Ryan said. “I just think pound-for-pound they are as good of athletes as any sport there is.”

BASEBALL LEGEND NOLAN RYAN MAKES APPEARANCE Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan was a special guest at the 2020 Wrangler NFR at Globe Life Field, Dec. 8. Ryan, who played 27 years in Major League Baseball – from 1966- 93 – with the New York Mets, California Angels, Houston Astros and Texas Rangers, struck out a major league-record 5,714 batters and has an MLB-best seven no-hitters, three more than any other pitcher in baseball history. Ryan was introduced to the crowd before Round 6. “I found it really interesting and I was wondering how it (the Wrangler NFR at Globe Life Field) was going to lay out, how it was going to look and how it was going to be for the fans,” Ryan said. “I think all those are plusses, and I think the fans have really enjoyed it.”

ProRodeo Sports News 12/18/2020

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