To a lot of people, the word “rodeo” immediately suggests bull riding— images of a distraught and infuriated, 2,000-pound animal doing his best to throw a man off his back are ones that are easily evoked. The ride lasts eight seconds (if the rider is lucky), and just like that, the event is over. Rodeo as a sport, however, is much, much more than that.
Bull Riding is one event, yes, but a Rodeo consists of several different events including Team Roping, Barrel Racing, Goat Tying, and many more. It is a sport in which success relies not only on the immense skill and training of the athlete, but also on the preparation, constant care and discipline of the athlete’s horse.
Contrary to its masculine reputation, rodeo is also a sport where men and women alike are able to compete and earn the respect of their teammates, the onlooking crowd, and their communities. UWA has both a Men’s and a Women’s Rodeo Team, which compete in several rodeo events every year.
“The harder you work, the greater the result will be,” says Jaide Ellick. Sure, this could be said for almost anything in life.
But Ellick, an All-Around competitor on UWA’s Women’s Rodeo Team, directly applies it to her passion for the sport in which she’s been competing since she was in second grade. Now a sophomore and Accounting major here at UWA, she has been involved in rodeo since she was old enough to join both of her parents’ families in the sport.
Ellick’s father, Greek, went to college on a rodeo scholarship, so it makes sense that Jaide has had the same goal since childhood. After 10 years of hard work and training in various events, she was honored to earn a scholarship to attend UWA (the only university in Alabama with a Rodeo team), where she competes in Breakaway Roping, Team Roping and Goat Tying. She has had the most success in Goat Tying and admits that it’s probably because she spends the most time practicing that event.
While the events at a rodeo are scored individually, the sport relies more heavily on teamwork than one might imagine.
“I have to have coaches and teammates that make me push myself and work harder to become better than I was yesterday. UWA has great teammates and coaches for [this] mentality.” Ellick went further to explain that members of a rodeo team “all work and push each other to become better, because while [they] are competing individually at college rodeos, [they] also compete to gather points to win as a team.”
Beyond competition, the team “help[s] each other day and night, practicing and feeding horses for one another while [other team members] attend amateur rodeos on off weekends from college [competitions].” Ellick says being a part of the team came easy for her, as she was also on her Varsity Basketball team in high school.
Ellick broke her arm after falling off her horse in the final rodeo event of the season last spring. “I broke my arm in the Breakaway Roping. The horse I was riding started bucking while I was trying to rope the calf. I turned a flip and landed on the ground. I knew when I landed that my arm was broken,” she says.
After recovering from surgery—which included having a plate and 20 screws placed throughout her arm the following day—Ellick returned to training and says she has come back stronger because of it (and has a scar to prove it!).
She says injuries are just a part of the process, and that they will make you better if you let them. “My advice to anyone who has broken a bone or gotten injured in a sport they love is that time heals everything, but never forget where you started. It’s always good to go back to the basics…and fix everything to be at the top of your game when you return.”
Getting back to the basics, for Ellick, meant that she was able to persevere through the pain and “strive to become better every day. I feel working hard and practicing every day has helped me to this day to accomplish everything I have within the sport of rodeo.”
When asked what she would like people to know, she explains how a close family friend’s death last December has affected her. She recommends to “never take the time you have in the sport for granted and enjoy it while it lasts.”
Ellick is now fully recovered from her injury and is ready to compete in this fall’s rodeos. The first rodeo of the season is the Missouri Valley Rodeo in Marshall, Missouri September 17-19, but if you want to cheer Ellick and her teammates on at home, the UWA Rodeo Showdown is here in Livingston, on September 24-26. Tickets are available at uwaathletics.com.