ProRodeo Sports News - August 2, 2019

TEAM ROPING HEELER

QUICK FACTS • Four-time world champion in 1979, 1990, 1995 and 2006 • Holds PRCA record for most qualifications (including invitations) by a team roper to the NFR with 30 (1978-96, 1998- 2008).

Allen Bach Four-time Team Roping Heeling World Champion gets Hall call BY TRACY RENCK PRCA ProRodeo file photo

NFR in 1978 with header Reg Camarillo. In 1979, everything went right for Bach to win his first NFR average and world championship. His header was Jesse James. That year, the slowest time Bach and James had at the NFR was 15.3 seconds in Round 9. They split first and second in Round 2, were fourth in Round 4 and Round 6, and had a 107.5-second time on 10 head. Bach is the only team roper to climb from 15th to first at the NFR, which he did in 1990. In 2006, Bach was the world champion heeler, while his heading partner Chad Masters finished second behind Matt Sherwood. Bach and Sherwood became the first non-partners to win team roping world titles. “I loved competition, I loved roping,” Bach said. “Anyone with a longstanding career, you have to love it that much to put up with the driving and adversity and the losing. You have to go through as much losing as you do winning. I love the people. I am so blessed to live my life in a sport where we love the Lord and we love our country. We have the best sport in the world.” Bach has never been shy about his faith in God as being a major component of his life. In 2006, he formed Forever Cowboys to mentor young cowboys and cowgirls in rodeo camps across the country. Bach wanted to increase the impact of cowboy values on the next generation of rodeo athletes. Bach has also helped influence the rodeo world through roping camps he has been leading since his first world championship. He took the opportunity to teach the basics to 40 ropers in Israel at a two-day camp in the Golan Heights region.

T eam roping heeler Allen Bach was one of the best in ProRodeo over four decades, highlighted by capturing world championships in 1979, 1990, 1995 and 2006. Bach holds the PRCA record for most qualifications (including invitations) by a team roper to the National Finals Rodeo with 30 (1978- 96, 1998-2008). All that success has made Bach one of the newest members of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. “I’ve had time to reflect back on my career,” said Bach, who still competes today on a limited basis. “I remember where I came from, which was from a ranch in the state of Washington. I didn’t really have any rodeo or roping background. I’m just super appreciative of the long career I’ve had. There are real secrets, I feel like I was supposed to be a roper. I really believe with my faith that God put me on the planet to rope. When I think about all the people I met and the stuff I’ve accomplished, it all came from the fact that it’s who I was supposed to be in life.” Bach also won NFR average titles in 1979 and 2006, roping with Jesse James and Chad Masters, respectively. In 1990 and ’95, Bach paired with Doyle Gellerman and Bobby Hurley. In 2007, Bach became the 11th ProRodeo competitor to surpass $2 million in career earnings. Bach fell in love with roping at an early age. In order to concentrate more on roping, he moved fromWashington to Arizona in high school so that he could practice longer. In 1977, he joined the PRCA and went to the

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