Cowboys make another job out of the thing they love to do

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Jeff Miller was living his dream.

He rodeoed in high school and won. Went to college on a rodeo scholarship and won. Went pro and kept winning living in a trailer with a couple other guys, traveling across the country and breaking even doing what he loved.

But when his good horse broke a leg, Miller, 29, found himself with no equal replacement, no money saved, a "dang-near wore-out" truck and no wins to show for his last six rodeos.

"I could see I was kind of rodeoing myself into a hole," says Miller, a tie-down roper and steer wrestler from Blue Mound, Kan. "I was kind of in a bind and didn't have any backup plan."

That's when he got a day job.

Full-timers

About a third of the cowboys and cowgirls who competed at the American Royal Dodge Prairie Circuit Finals Pro Rodeo in Kansas City do it full time for a living, circuit President Bronc Rumford says. About a third are "young up-and-comers" right out of school.

The rest, Rumford says, are like Miller -- talented, competitive, established cowboys who, for various reasons, hold down full-time jobs between weekends on the road.

Rumford says he had known doctors, dentists and lawyers who rodeo on top of their careers, and even a retired world-champion saddle bronc rider who sold Mary Kay skin-care products on the side.

"All of them balance it differently," Rumford says. "For some of them, the balance is, they don't get to do very many rodeos. It's more a lifestyle they enjoy when they can."

Qualifying

The Royal rodeo is big enough that most of the contestants, if they're not full-time rodeo cowboys, have made a lot of sacrifices to qualify, Rumford says.

For instance, contestants must have competed in at least 15 of 46 circuit rodeos this year to be eligible, no matter how good their scores are or how much money they've made.

"They have no spare time," Rumford says. "Any time off from their regular job is spent practicing or doing things with the rodeo."

After Miller's horse went down, he went to work for a feed yard before a loan officer position opened up at a nearby bank.

With a business finance degree and a willingness to "try anything once," Miller gave working 8 to 5 a shot. He stayed with the bank about 1½ years, chipping away at his vacation days one Friday at a time instead of the preferred week in the spring and week in the fall like everybody else.

He's now a crop-insurance agent recruiter for NAU Country Insurance Co. and sells rodeo livestock on the side. More flexible hours mean he can rodeo pretty much whenever he wants, which is often.

One recent weekend, Miller was at a calf-roping jackpot Friday night, a team-roping jack-pot Saturday and another ro-

deo event a few hours away on Sunday.

Getting ahead

For Dustin Murray, 29, of Wellston, Okla., rodeo is a way to get ahead financially while he's young. Murray expects to rodeo only a few more years.

Murray makes his living from an insurance agency that he and his wife own. But he has been to 80 or more rodeos this year, making it like a second full-time job.

"When I'm not on the road rodeoing, I'm at the office," he says. "It's a little bit draining."

Murray says his wife often stayed home with their nearly 2-year-old daughter, but filled in to keep the office open while he was gone.

"Obviously," Murray says, "I'd rather make a couple hundred thousand a year rodeoing and not have to do something else. But that's not the boat I'm in."

Zac Parrington, a steer wrestler from Hoyt, Kan., has worked for Jayhawk Fire Sprinkler Co. in Topeka, Kan., 11 years long enough to become a manager and gain some flexibility because of seniority.

"I'm not going to say I can come and go as I please, but it's easier," he says.

Parrington, 31, jokes that if it weren't for the money, he'd rodeo for free. But being married with three young children, "you've got to take care of the bread and butter," he says.

Parrington and his wife also buy and sell roping and ranch horses, so competing in rodeos helps him make business contacts and gain credibility.

For Miller, like the others, the extra money's nice, but he really loves competing.

When he wasn't winning, he recalls his mom telling him: "You're just like a gambler. You just keep going back."

"I couldn't imagine doing anything else," he says.