ProRodeo Sports News - April 6, 2018

IN HIS OWNWORDS: JOSEPH HARRISON

MORE RODEOS LEAD HEELER TO MORE MONEY Team roping heeler Joseph Harrison upped his rodeo count in 2017 and it paid off when he qualified for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. Before 2017, Harrison had never won more than $10,000 in a ProRodeo season. But last year, the 30-year-old, Oklahoma cowboy won $160,793 ($82,346 at the NFR) to finish ninth in the PRCA World Standings. This year, he was sitting in second in the April 2 world standings with $33,391. mind. You’ve still got to go to the same places, you’re still going to go to the same rodeos and work hard at it, but you don’t seem to fret about it as much. My biggest score of the year came in my first trip to the San Antonio Stock Show&Rodeo, where I won more than $21,000. It was an awesome, awesome rodeo. I’d never rodeoed enough to have enough won to go to San Antonio. My partner at the time (Bubba Buckaloo) did a good job every time. I’m looking forward to going

I went to a whole lot more rodeos last year. I think the most rodeos I had been to in the regular season before 2017 was 18. Last year, the limit was 75 and I went to 73. I decided I wanted to try and make the NFR. You’ve got to go to the same rodeos everybody does and show up and try to win something to make the NFR. I waited until I had my horses set up like I wanted. I had the money rounded up to where if I didn’t do well it wasn’t going to break me. Then I got a good partner, Charly Crawford. I got to go to a lot of rodeos I never went to. Obviously, winning like we did was fun. It was a great experience and I’d tell anybody thinking of trying it to do it. I had said that once you’ve been to one rodeo you’ve been to all of them, all the rodeos are the same. That is not a true statement. That particular rodeo (NFR) is by far the best rodeo they have. At the NFR, we didn’t kill them, but we did good. We won a little over $80,000. I’ve been team roping my entire life, and that’s by far the best week of team roping I’ve ever had. Having as much money as I have won right now sure makes it easier. I think this time last year I had $8,000-$10,000 won, and obviously wasn’t as comfortable. Having the start that I’ve got right nowmakes it a lot easier on the

back there next year. I just started roping with two-time PRCAWorld Champion Team Roping Header ChadMasters. The Rio Grande Valley Livestock Show& Rodeo inMercedes, Texas, was our first competition together. We took fifth place in 4.6 seconds, winning nearly $2,000. We’ve roped around each other for a long while. He called me the other day and we just decided to start doing it. In addition to rodeoing, I show AQHA team roping horses for Bobby Lewis. I’ve been doing that off and on since I was 15 years old. I’ve been at it solidly since Jan. 1, 2010. He’s a great guy, made it possible for me to rodeo and still have a job. The horses I ride at the rodeos, he either owns or we’re partners on. He’s been really good to me since I was a kid. He’s one of my favorite people. Working full time and rodeoing full time has its trials and tribulations. Sometimes you have to be at a horse show three days and go somewhere every night to a rodeo. When we get done at a horse show, we haul tail to the rodeo and half the night back to the horse show. A lot of guys wouldn’t want to go through that trouble, but I don’t mind. I’m a young man and my body is still in good shape. While I can do it to myself I don’t mind the work. I want to be everywhere there’s money involved and fun. I don’t mind having to work a little harder to have a little fun.

ProRodeo Sports News 4/6/18

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