User:Ejorde16/sandbox

Early Life
Growing up in the Texas Panhandle, Matt and his sister junior rodeoed. Their dad roped and Matt followed suit but switched to steer wrestling in high school. “There’s a lot more adrenaline rush for me in steer wrestling, and I was much better at it.” Matt high school rodeoed for Texas before competing in college for Texas A&M University and Oklahoma State University. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in animal science, then coached the rodeo team at Clarendon College in Texas for a year. “Coaching wasn’t for me, so I rode horses for some people, and then I ran a water well shop that my sister owned.” Not long after that, Matt found his stride in the rodeo world and took home checks from numerous rodeos in the winter of 2007. With his goal set of winning the Texas Circuit in 2007, which he achieved by April of that year, Matt knew it was time to take a chance and rodeo full time. “I loved the traveling, and I saw lots of rodeos I’d never seen before.” For Matt, another highlight of rodeoing is making his own horses, qualifying for the WNFR on three that he’s trained. He qualified for the most recent WNFR on Nacho, but sadly, the horse had to be put down in the fall after an accident in the pasture. Matt rode Ote, owned by Bray Armes, at the finals, and his own up-and-coming steer wrestling horse, Roy, is Ote’s son. “I hauled Roy last year and rode him at a lot of circuit rodeos; he’s a cool horse.” Matt uses the slower winter months to start his younger horses in the box, but adds, “You can’t make them until you haul them. Once you get your horses to where you can practice on them, you need to rodeo on them. I practice a few days a week, and most of the time it’s for the horses, but if I don’t feel good, then practice is for me.”

Career
• 2008: Won the Colorado State Fair Rodeo (Pueblo), the Elk City (Okla.) Rodeo of Champions and the Butterfield Stage Days Rodeo (Bridgeport, Texas). Finished 28th in the world standings with earnings of $37,138 • 2007: Won Round 2 of the Wrangler NFR with a time of 3.5 seconds and placed in three rounds to rank 13th. Missed Rounds 7 and 8 due to a concussion. Won the Henderson County PRCA Stampede (Athens, Texas), the Dogwood Classic PRCA Rodeo (Palestine, Texas), the Sandhills Stock Show and Rodeo (Odessa, Texas), the Matagorda County Fair & Rodeo (Bay City, Texas), and the Dodge Texas Circuit Finals Rodeo (Waco). Finished the year 13th in the world standings