ProRodeo Sports News - March 9, 2018

IN HIS OWNWORDS: LUKE CREASY

CREASY CUTTING BACK ON RODEOTOTEACH Bareback rider Luke Creasy is hoping to make his first Wrangler National Finals Rodeo qualification. But if it doesn’t happen that’s OK, too. Creasy, who was eighth in the 2018 PRCA World Standings as of March 5 with $24,144, isn’t rodeoing full time. Instead, the Texas Tech graduate is teaching sixth-grade English at Highland Middle School in Hobbs, N.M. The biggest reason for teaching and not being on the rodeo road full time: to be closer to his son, Cash, 6, and to spend more time with him. I’ve never had a real job in my life. I don’t know that I had to, but it feels good to have done it. With how this winter has gone I kind of wish I’d done it sooner. I’ve been feeling really good, and it’s been nice to go to some rodeos on the weekend and come back home and hang out with my son more on a regular basis and be there for him.

He goes to school four minutes from where I go to school. I go teach, he gets out of class 20 minutes before I’m done teaching. He likes coming to my classroom and drawing on the board. It’s nice I have a job that allows for a little bit of that. People I work with make it a great environment. This is my first teaching of any sort. I observed a classroom and had a bit of experience that way, but other than that I’ve just helped out with rodeo clinics. I’ve been working on various projects over the years, but right now, with how busy I’ve been, I’ve been lucky to get things graded and work on a few art projects I do on the side. I do pencil sketches and paintings. When the weekend comes around, I’ve

T he winter has been pretty good, I haven’t rodeoed very hard. That always helps when per horse, per rodeo you’re making consistent money. That’s a lot better than rodeoing insanely aggressive and averaging out OK. It’s nice to go where you deem necessary and making effective income. Come summer, I’ll be free to do more rodeo. I’ll

be entering some stuff during the week, which I haven’t been doing, so I don’t miss work. I’m not going to live on the road. I am a single father, so I want to spend as much time as possible with my son. I’ll organize things in a way that are good for him. It won’t be as aggressive maybe as in years past, but I’ll still be using my summers off to make an effective living rodeoing, for sure.

The artwork above is a sample of work from bareback rider Luke Creasy.

appreciated rodeo more now than I did before. It wasn’t that rodeo was becoming mundane, but I’d been doing the same thing for approximately 10 years, and all of a sudden, I changed the game for myself.

ProRodeo Sports News 3/9/18

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