ProRodeo Sports News - May 18, 2018

Jeter laughed. Hunting with Jeter isn’t sitting in a deer stand, it’s about spotting and stalking with long-range shooting. “He’s very meticulous and knows a lot about weaponry and ballistics, and he usually does really good as far as getting clients on the wild hogs,” Hill said. Jeter’s detailed approach to hunting is like his approach to ProRodeo competition. “As a competitor, he studied his horses and he knew his horses,” Hill said. “As he came into his own, there weren’t many he couldn’t handle and get a good score on. He was very tenacious and very well prepared for whatever he had drawn.” Jeter got into rodeo while attending high school in Arlington, Texas. His school had a rodeo team and his friends were involved, which fit well with his family’s involvement with race horses. “Coming from that background with horses at home, I just wanted to get on some bareback horses – it was wilder and more flamboyant (than other events),” Jeter said. Jeter also spent a summer practicing with Sandy Kirby, a 14-time Wrangler NFR qualifier for bareback and bull riding. “He taught me everything I needed for bareback riding,” Jeter said. Jeter kicked off his ProRodeo career at 20 years old in 1993 and qualified for his first Dodge National Circuit Finals Rodeo in 1998. He returned to the Dodge NCFR in 2001, the same year he made his first Wrangler NFR qualification. Jeter competed at the Wrangler NFR in 2001-05 and 2007, winning the average in 2002. “When I started going to the Finals, I had some problems and riding hurt was second nature,” Jeter said. “It didn’t prohibit you from going, you just had to take extra time to tape up.” Hill agreed. “With the career he had and success he had at the NFR, if he stayed a little healthier those last couple years he would have been a world champ,” Hill said. Jeter also qualified for 14Wrangler ProRodeo Tour Finale competitions (winter 2002, 2004-06, summer 2001, 2003-06 and championships 2003- 07). He won the tour finale championship in 2005. “It took me quite a few years until I started having success, and I just rode it out for as long as it would go,” Jeter said. SUCCEEDINGAND SOCIALIZING Although he had plenty of success in the arena, that wasn’t the only highlight for Jeter. Rodeo introduced Jeter to new friends, but he stopped seeing them regularly after he quit competing. “I loved the camaraderie and the friends from rodeo, and that’s the hardest thing about leaving, not seeing the same guys anymore,” Jeter said. Jeter still goes to rodeos and tries to go to the Wrangler NFR every “Being a cowboy, it’s a way of life. The guys who do it understand it, and it got to where my heart wasn’t in it anymore like it should have been.” -– JASON JETER FINDING HIS SPORT

Jeter often finds time to relax on his hunting trips, such as when he went hunting in the Caucasus Mountains, a mountain range between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, in the fall of 2017. Photo courtesy Jason Jeter

couple of years to catch up with old friends. Jeter won some of ProRodeo’s biggest competitions, including California Rodeo Salinas in 2001 and 2003, the Cody (Wyo.) Stampede in 2001 and 2007, the Reno (Nev.) Rodeo in 2004, and the National Western Stock Show & Rodeo in Denver in 2005. “The most important part was winning and being successful, so that’s probably a highlight, too,” Jeter said. Jeter still holds two records at the Dodge City (Kan.) Roundup. In 2004, he made a 91-point ride on Vold Rodeo’s Dusty Dan, which helped him also set the two-head average record of 174 points. Jeter didn’t know it at the time in 2009, but La Fiesta de los Vaqueros in Tucson, Ariz., was his final competition. He hasn’t ridden a bronc since. “I just never entered another one,” Jeter said. “I never had the conversation with myself that it was time to quit – I didn’t enter any more and I just said, ‘I guess that’s it.’” Jeter had been battling some knee and hip problems since the 2007 Wrangler NFR. A year-and-a-half later they were still bothering him. “It seemed like it was time,” Jeter said. “Being a cowboy, it’s a way of life. The guys who do it understand it, and it got to where my heart wasn’t in it anymore like it should have been. When you lose that, you start making mistakes out there.” “He respected his body enough to know when to say when,” Hill said. “His love for hunting helped himmake that decision.”

ProRodeo Sports News 5/18/2018

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