Making the best of things
Posted on Friday, July 4, 2008
SPRINGDALE — Football. Basketball. Baseball. Whatever the sport, its coaches often say their games are metaphors for life.
Doug King thinks the same thing about rodeo.
King, who competed as a tiedown roper Thursday night at the 64 th Rodeo of the Ozarks at Parsons Stadium, was born and raised in Bentonviile. He’s 44 years old and runs a poultry and cattle operation in Centerton.
He participated in other sports growing up, including spending some time as Bentonville’s starting quarterback, but it’s the life lessons he’s learned while rodeoing that keep King tied to the sport more than 30 years after he roped his first calf.
“Rodeo, you put up your entry fee and if you get a good calf and do well, you can win quite a bit of money,” King said prior to Thursday’s performances. “Or if you don’t, you don’t.
“ But the bigger thing about rodeo is that it’s just like life. No matter what you draw, you do the best you can.”
That’s the message King had instilled while learning the sport from his father, and the one he is now passing on to his two teenage sons and 9-year-old daughter Katelyn.
“They’re really the ones that have kind of kept me going and kept me practicing over the years, or I probably would’ve quit by now,” King said with a laugh. “They just keep on prodding me.”
Katelyn King competes in barrel racing and pole bending, while J. C., 17, and Garrett, 15, are tie-down ropers like their father.
Tie-down roping, formerly known as calf roping, pits contestants against each other and the clock. Cowboys must first rope the calf as quickly as possible after it’s released, then dismount, sprint to the calf and secure any three of its legs. If the calf remains bound for six seconds, the cowboy receives his time, which is measured against his competitors.
“I started roping in high school, then went right on through college,” said King, who preferred the thrill of the event over football, his other athletic love.
King said he even turned down a handful of football scholarship offers to accept a rodeo offer from Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College in Miami.
“I got serious about it when I got to college,” King said.
King eventually competed as part of the International Professional Rodeo Association for 12 years, including a stretch from 1984 to 1988 during which rodeo practically qualified as a part-time job. King, who often spent Thursday through Sunday on the road, credits his wife, Elizabeth, for making that time possible even as the two started their family.
King is quick to add his current rodeo activity — and that of his children — also is a credit to his wife.
“Without her, we couldn’t have done near as much as we’ve done,” King said. “She’s the one that really keeps things together.”
Among the highlights of King’s career was a trip to the International Finals Rodeo in 1991 and a second-place finish at a Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association event in Denver in 1998. King said he’s competed in PRCA events for six or seven years, roughly the same number of times he’s competed at the Rodeo of the Ozarks.
More than any of those single events, though, King seems to most value the cumulative lessons he’s been able to teach his children through rodeo.
“It doesn’t matter if we get to the calf pen and don’t like the one we’ve drawn,” King said. “We don’t quit trying.”
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
