¶ Bull Riding Family Tradition
Connor Dean , how are you man ?
Good , how about yourself , Nick ?
Doing all right . Man , thank you for joining me at this lovely early Saturday morning . It's a little dark over here , but you know you're kind of used to it around uh , these parts on eastern , eastern washington , but you're western right , or ?
originally I am from western washington , but about seven years ago we moved over to the east side east sides , but you're up north more yes , sir yeah , yeah , you're , you're with uh j-dub .
Yep , I'm south north of them . Yeah , those guys are crazy , man . They ended up traveling together during J-Dub's episode and , dude , we just had a blast , it was cool , and they just drove down here for that episode . It was crazy . I was like what ? So shout out to them , dude . Also shout out to your uncle , cody Bartels .
Dude , he's going to be in Sela today . Outskirts brewing company .
Yes , sir .
And dude , he's tearing it up . Oh yeah , how many times have you seen him live ?
Uh , I've only seen him a handful of times live other than just on the couch and whatnot . But uh , he mostly plays the bars and stuff , so I I'm not really allowed in there yet . But I've seen him a couple of times other venues , like little rodeos and whatnot , but other than that I've only seen him live a couple of times .
Yeah , the cool thing about a Sela the outskirts , outskirts , brewing is that all ages can be in there . So , yeah , yeah , it's pretty cool , man . It's pretty cool to see your uncle at its finest , dude .
And the other day well , a couple of weeks ago , maybe a week I saw him at Wheatstock which kids can go there as well and , dude , he played in his rendition of Simple man . Oh , buddy , I had to give him a heads up , dude , just a hand clap and everything else . Ok , basically stating that he tore it up . So shout out to him .
Man , so you're on the podcast , not because you're some just average writer bull rider . That is , dude , I've been wanting you on for the longest time and you know it . And here you are . But , dude , you're a pretty ba bull rider yourself . Thank you , you're making a name for yourself and you know it . I know you want to try to stay humble .
You boys are humble up there . You know j , dub and jc and who . Who else ? Man gosh ?
we got a couple guys that are coming up . My little brother's actually just starting to get into the full-size bulls now . He did steers for the longest time , but he's starting to get there . And then we've got uh , uh , we've got colton schneiderman . He's real good .
He's older than us , but yeah , schneiderman man , I saw him in spokane , uh , the velocity tour , and I see him in the practice pen at uh autos so yes , sir , yeah , he's real good .
And then , uh , we got uh this kid he's just a year older than me and he's starting to go to the pbrs .
Blake mazden , he's real good too oh , yeah , the guy from yeah , he's a walla walla college correct community , yeah , yeah , yeah he's , he's pretty bad , he's a bad dude . But yeah , I'm glad .
I'm glad you know someone who's been in the game for a bit and , young as you are , knowing talent yourself , you know , and so it was cct boy , you can ride , thank you , you can ride , and you're in high school , I know you do . You've been doing high school rodeo , right and , uh , cct challenge of champions .
But you , you've taken a step back this past year , which is okay , not saying anything bad about it or even negative about it . What made the change , if you don't mind ? Uh , explaining what made the change from you pretty much going out every week to high school rodeo week to high school rodeo .
Well , uh , the real change was injuries .
Uh , I had some injuries here and there and uh , so I've taken a little bit of time off , but uh , there's that , and also just trying to focus mainly on the high school for that season and then mainly on the ccts for their season , and then , hitting open rodeos here and there , but uh , I was just trying to put 90 percent of my focus into those two and ,
uh , it just had me take a step back from some of the smaller open rodeos I was going to okay , how did you get involved in the bull riding world ?
how did it all start ?
well , uh , it's a funny story in my so all three of my uncles on my mom's side , red bulls , cody and then I got two other uncles , lyle and scotty , and uh , that they really made me want to get into it . But also my little brother when he was two years old he'd watch like every pbr there was and he just that's what he wanted to do .
He wanted red bulls and I thought it was kind of cool . But I wasn't too much into it until I was about seven . He was five or five or four and uh , my mom asked him if he wanted to sign up for a junior rodeo and he was all about it and I was a little jealous . I like , well , I want to go too .
And so we signed up and just running from there .
So since seven .
Yep .
And you've been riding ever since , nonstop .
Yes , sir , good All right .
¶ Bull Riding Career Aspirations
When did you decide to you know , take it up a notch . To you know , go from high school to the big boy CCT .
It was more of uh . Two years ago I went to my first one , but I didn't really hit it hard , I just went to a couple of them , didn't do so good either . And then , uh , this last year I really wanted to focus on them and this next year's gonna be more .
I only went to a handful of them this year , but this next year I'm going to hit them hard with the PRCA rodeos .
Yeah , now when you approach parents , right , yes , you're in the high school rodeo , which is BA the self . It's pretty awesome . But what makes a kid your age at the time approach your parents about , hey , let's bring it up a notch , cct here I come , because cct is there's no , you know , chump change there .
You know there's some bad boys there , you know so . So what made you say , hey , dad , mom , cct , here I come really it was uh um , colton shiderman .
He was telling me I got to get into it . I was really wanting to and I finally just asked my mom . There was one in Heppner Oregon two years ago . That's the first one I went to . I really wanted to go to it , so I just went up to her and asked her if she'd maybe let me go down there . She didn't have a problem with it .
She thought I was ready and I knew I was ready in my mind and turns out I wasn't so ready . But it was good experience . And then this last year I just I just wanted to go to and she didn't say no , so okay now .
Now , like all events in the dirts , uh , they have a ranking in high school , correct ?
Yes , sir .
Okay , If you don't mind , what's your ranking in the high school level of bull riding Well ?
in the state . Right now JC's beating me and it's really irritating me . I've got to go through all winter long with old JC beating me , but I'm sitting second and JC sits first .
Okay , out of how many boys ?
I'd say there's about 14 of us .
Okay , that says a lot man , but I remember JC wasn't even worried about bull riding , he was more about that contracting luck . When he came in my house , man , so for him , just for for him to be number one , I wonder what happened .
He's probably selling it hard , yeah okay , all right , but yeah , jc's dirty dude , all right , so , and if you're number two , you got to be dirty as well , man . So so how many points are separating you guys ?
I think it's only like six or so points , something like that . Six or seven , okay , it's right there .
Okay , when's the first event coming back this year ?
For high school . Yeah , we don't have a set date yet , but it's going to be probably late April .
We'll get the first high school one back . Is that Walla , walla ?
I know our state finals is in Walla Walla , but I don't know any of the other ones yet .
Okay Now , whoever takes one , where do you guys go ? You guys go to the finals , isn't it in Georgia , or something like that ?
So the junior high finals in Georgia or something like that so the junior high finals in Georgia . Ours will be in Rock Springs , wyoming .
Wyoming okay . Is that the goal this year ?
Yes , sir , the goal is to make it there and the goal is to do good there too . Then finish out , because I'm a senior this year . Finish out high school bang and hit them .
Prca and cct roads hard okay , and you're gonna go for the yellow buck and shoot , not the , uh , not the pbr to start .
I'll start with the prca yellow buck and shoots , but I'm eventually . I'm gonna go pbr , it's just a matter of time , and I'll probably go to some of them .
Velocity tours too , but not very much what makes a person go from pc uh , prca to pbr ? Normally lately , a lot of the boys that are coming up they go straight pbr . What's why yellow compared to pbr ?
honestly I I just love rodeoing . I mean , I like just simple bull rides and whatnot , like TCTs , but I like hitting the road and traveling With them . Pbrs if you make it big , you're just getting on an airplane every week and flying out .
Versus with the PRCA , you get to travel the country and go rodeo and see every event , rather than just the bull riding .
Like the Columbia Circuit and whatnot . Okay , plus , there's more money , right , is there more money ? I believe there's more money .
I'd say there's more money in the PBR right now per event , but you have to be good enough to be winning the event to get that type of money .
Okay , and when do you think you'll get your card ?
I'll get my permit in april at my birthday , and then , uh , after that , I'll probably wait two years to buy my card okay , all right .
So yellow , yellow bucking shoe at the end of the year . Man , you're excited I'm stoked .
That's all I want to do with my life is ride bulls . But I've got backup plans . But I , if I , can just make the bull riding work , that's what I want to do okay , and ?
and what's the backup plan ?
if you don't mind me asking I I like welding and I like , I like the construction scene and everything . But uh , I'm I'm probably gonna be going to college this next year , so I gotta decide . But I think I'll get ag business degree where are you gonna go ? I've been looking into a couple colleges .
Uh , there's one in odessa , texas and they're gonna there okay I'm really looking into them . No guarantees yet , but it's looking good getting into their rodeo program as well yes , sir okay , you should stay in pacific northwest , but that's just me . That's just me the difference is uh , down in texas , they can buck bulls every day of the week all year long .
Right , it's just . I think it's where I got to go to be the best bull rider I can and then come back . Will you come back , though ? Oh yeah , oh yeah .
To pay it forward when you retire .
I'll probably come back as soon as I'm done with college . Okay , I've lived up here my whole life . It'd be a weird moving all the way down there just without knowing hardly anybody . No family down there .
Yeah , I got you Okay , so compete down there during the year , but summertime come up north and compete .
Yes , sir Gotcha . Okay , that's smart , that's smart . That's what Lane Vaughn's been doing , sir Gotcha . Okay , that's smart , that's smart . That's what Lane Vaughn's been doing too . He goes to school in Snyder , texas . He's about two hours or so from Odessa , and he came up here for the spring and for the summer and just rodeoed the whole time up here .
Yeah , he's bad dude , he's a bad dude .
Yeah , and he doesn't have the body as a bull rider , you know , and he gets that a lot . But man , dude , he makes it work . He makes it work , yeah , because you hear . You hear a lot of people like , oh , I was a lanky , tall guy can't , you know , ride yous .
But here I am , I'm bareback in or saddle Brock and I'm like , okay , but dude , lane is making it work . So that's cool that you put a , put his name out there . Man , shout out to Lane , shout out to Lane . So so you're a senior PRCA , going to get your card this January , a couple of days from now , cct , the finals . You're competing .
Yes , sir .
What is your goal for that ?
My goal is to ride every bull I get . And I know there's no chance I can win the whole deal . I'm too many points behind .
But if I can , do good at the event and uh , just read every ball I got there make some money yeah , for sure okay , who is that ? Who's at the lead right now ?
uh , I don't know who's at the lead , but uh , I think it might be . It might be Doherty , colton Doherty .
Okay , but .
I'm not for sure on that . He's been there for a bit too . Oh yeah , he's good . He's another one of them tall , lengthy guys . That just makes it work .
Right , Okay , All right . So your brother ? He's in the high school rodeo and he's tearing it up .
He struggled this year but we took him to a couple of practice pens afterwards and that last high school rodeo he showed a lot of potential so we took him to some practice pens and he really started to put it together .
He's not there yet , but he's really starting to put it together he's not there yet , but he's he really starting to put together is ? Is he gonna stick ?
with it ? He's not , I think so he likes other sports . He likes other sports like basketball and football , but I think he's gonna stick with bull riding okay , and and you're dealing with some injury and you're not getting discouraged .
Bull riding is life .
Yes , sir , this isn't the first injury I've had , so I learned to not get discouraged with it . Everybody always comes back and it doesn't bring me down too much . I know there's more ahead of me .
Too much , I know there's more ahead of me If you do get down on yourself , right , and you're just down and just don't want , you just need a little pick-me-up . Who do you call man ? Who do you talk to ?
I call a couple people , but JC , actually he helps me a lot with that , with talking Peyton Robinson , that bareback rider , he's real good about it . But uh , rob sweeney , he's an old bull rider from up in the northwest .
Uh , he is real good with that and he rode all the bulls you can think of all back in the day red wolf , yellow jacket , all them bulls and he's really good to talk to and you get discouraged okay , when you're at these events , who's the guy that you watch ?
um , you don't miss .
You can't miss a ride , dude well I'd say for the cct oh shoot , that's a tough one . Um , I I like watching dalton davis . He's been around forever and he's just in that circle . He's a legend , so I like watching him a lot . But obviously Colton and JC I travel with them so I can't miss them .
But him , I'd say , dalton Davis and Colton Doherty are two of the guys I can't miss .
About Dalton man . He's as tough as it can get , man . I've been watching him for years and to see him just day in , day out or weekend in , weekend out and do his thing , I don't know how he does it , man , I don't know .
I'm not close enough with him to know to talk to him about that type of stuff . I've talked to him before but we're not super close . But he's a tough dude and I I don't know how he does it yeah , yeah , very tough , yeah , and he's going to be there , right , that cct .
What's that ? He's going to be at the cct , correct ?
I'm sure he is . Yeah , he's up in the standings .
¶ Road Trip Bull Riding Chat
Okay , when you go to the CCT , are you and your family members going to go , or is it just you , mom pops ?
It'll just be me and my dad . Maybe my little brother will go , but he's got a basketball game that week . He might skip out on it , but my mom's got work that week and my dad doesn't have anything . So I think it's just probably going to be me and my dad .
Okay , and it's this next weekend , as a matter of fact , right .
Yes , sir .
Yeah , jackson County state fair , isn't it ? And Medford ?
No , it's in a . Where is it ? Central point Oregon .
Yeah Well right , like right Well right there .
Right there .
yeah , it's like right north of Medford . It's a long drive . Yeah , it is .
That's all I know .
And a two-day advance . Okay , all right . Who's your favorite one to watch man on TV ?
On .
TV or in the circuit .
I got lots of them Right now . I'd say my favorite to watch for the PBR scene it's got to be John Kremmer . He's so electric right now he's unstoppable . But for my favorite bull rider , well okay . So I'm a little biased towards TJ Gray at the finals this year .
Because he's from our region , I rode against him , but that kid , he's a super nice kid and everything . Wasey Shaw is a stud and he's got a bright future .
Would they say the same about you , man ?
I'd hope so .
Yeah , I don't know man , I don't know . Dude , the longest time I've tried to get you on , I've probably waited more to talk about . Oh man , but here you are . You're going to kick butt and take names . Pretty sure you'll be number one . Don't tell JC I said that If JC comes , comes down .
He was supposed to come down too , man , like a year ago , and he never made it , you know . But uh , pretty sure he'll . He'll hit me up after hearing this uh episode and be like dude , I need to get on the podcast . Yeah , jc sucks you guys throwing shit . It's love .
He's one of my best friends in the whole world . I like messing with him and stuff like that . If he does good , that's great , but I do want to beat him bad .
Yeah , and what grade is he in ?
He's senior too . He's my age .
Okay , man , I remember he was a freshman sophomore when he stopped by . Yeah , time flies , man . So what ? What's he gonna do after school ? Just go straight up prca or pbr I don't know .
I I think he's wanting to go to college and he looked at the same one .
I did too , but I don't know what he's gonna do what are the chances of you guys having uh be uh riding buddies ?
there's a good chance . I hope that'll be awesome man . He's a good one to have in the car because not only will he help you and talk you through some things , but he'll never let you just get by with you know , being self-pity on yourself . He'll tell you you messed up here , you need to fix it , or , uh , he .
He'll tell you when he knows how to talk like he . If you're down , he knows how to pick you back up , but he knows how to not like make you feel good you could . That was not your fault , you know , I mean yeah , yeah , okay .
What would he say about you man ?
what do you mean ?
what would he say about you ? What's your best qualities as a riding buddy ?
I don't know I'd say I'm kind of the same way , but in a way I just like to stay in my own lane , but I do try to help my buddies out a lot too . I try to do the same thing JC does . He's just a lot better at it than I am . He knows what to say , when to say I don't .
Probably because of his brother . Yeah , Shout out to J-Dub dude , he's making it work . He is making it work , man For sure . All right , man , when you travel , what's your go-to food man ? Does mom make you lunch or do you just eat whatever's at the gas station ?
well , honestly , I wish I could eat healthier on the road , but I just eat whatever we got .
That's cheap yeah , I gotcha okay , so anything goes pretty much . I'm not too picky on food , but I try to stay away from the stuff that I know it's not good for me as best I can . It's your go-to music on the road okay .
So it depends on what car I'm in . I'm not usually the music man . I just listen to whatever everybody else is listening to . Yeah , if I'm with hayton robinson , the bareback rider , we listen to country music , whatever .
If I'm with , uh uh , jc , it's like 90s rock and so he has some weird music I don't know , and uh , then uh , if I'm with blake mazden , it's rock the
¶ High School Rodeo Future Plans
whole way .
You're getting pumped up along the way to the bull rad okay , all right , pretty sure blake was uh practice , practice uh pen with uh dk before dk went back .
Huh oh yeah , him and him and derrick are real close because , uh , uh , one of our good friends and Blake's girlfriend , actually they're Derek's neighbor and so he'd go over there all the time and he got real close with him .
It's good to see him back on the bull man Kicking butt , man Taking names dude . Oh yeah , because that injury that he had was quite brutal .
No kidding . Yeah , it was good to see him get that event win last week , Right right , yeah , I was good to see him get that event when last week .
Right , right , okay when you're behind the bucking shoes , right when you're behind the sheets , do you ? How do you ? How do you prepare for a ride , man ?
Honestly , I just try to stay loose . I don't I'm not wanting to put headphones in and listen to this pump up music or nothing . I just listen to whatever the announcers got playing and I just I just stay loose , talk to everybody before I get on and it I feel like it helps me more than trying to get pumped up and serious and everything .
You know , there's a time when it clicks . When I'm crawling down in the bucket it clicks and it's time to game on . But other than that I'm just trying to have a good time to stay loose until I get down on that bull you don't goof around like lane , no dude , I don't know how he does it .
I don't know how he does it on a bull and behind the sheets . I'm like , do you not surprised no one wants to fight you dude ? No kidding , yeah , but hey has fun . He's a real cowboy right there , man .
So why is it that a lot of the boys that are coming out of high school , right , whether it's whatever event bull riding , bareback , saddle , bronc , why are the majority of them going to college instead of just right out you know the shoot going prca , pbr ? Why do you see more kids your age going to college now ?
I'd say it opens more doors and , uh , gives you better experience . Because , like I know for a fact I mean I know that I'm not going to be ready for NFR level but right out of high school I need a little bit of practice in college and everything I need to get on some better bulls and have that more team environment and it kind of I don't know .
I think it's just , people need experience and that's really why I'm going is to get better experience before I really hit it hard , because I don't want to go and just be the guy that falls off . I want to be there to win every time . So I want to just get better experience and go to college and get that experience .
When are you going to know for sure what school you're going to go to ? In March , I'll know , because that's when they'll send out the paperwork and everything .
All right , is that when the coach will uh get ahold of you , or is that just the school saying I bet some coaches get ahold of me and tell me that they'll give me an offer , but they can't guarantee it until March .
So Okay , all right . What rodeo has nailed to the rodeo worldo world ? Uh , college world has the nil as well I don't know .
I hope , yeah , I doubt it yeah , no , that was a joke .
I don't think that's happening , but dude could you imagine could ?
you imagine oh my god , you live in the high life live in the high life , but they'll destroy .
I mean it's already destroying football , it's going to destroy it's throwing track and cross country as well . Man , that nil is not the best .
So no , that's another thing like that . That pbr team's deal it's . It's real cool and I like it , but it it's almost like . It's like . I don't like the guaranteed pay thing like I want to . It means more to me when I'm riding and I'm I need to ride to make money I feel , like I ride better that way .
When there's more money on the line , it's not guaranteed yeah , and the guaranteed money is not even that that great . No , yeah , I heard , I heard you know even the teams . Like I'm not going to say anything bad , but the team , I heard the team .
If you're not the starter and making rides , dude , all you're doing you're spending more money traveling than you are , you know , every day .
Right , I would say you'd have to ask Dawson Branton about that , but he he rides everything there , so I would he wouldn't know anything about not being a starter .
Yeah , that boy's bad though .
He's been riding real good .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . What is uh ? Dalton Davis talked about that on the podcast when the team started that you know you spent more money traveling than you do .
Yeah , more money traveling than you do .
Yeah , oh yeah , period , so it's not really worth it , but dude , they're trying to make this team thing that it is cool , but they've got some kinks to break out for sure yeah , yeah , I think I think they need to have more for the up and coming , the guys that aren't guaranteed , the guys that you know that they pick up from a circuit or two and that are
in the background . I think they really need to use those guys as wild cards or something , because I hate seeing the same riders every weekend , day in , day out . It's like come on , man , the up and comers is where it's at , you know yep , you never know what kind of talent you got correct , man .
And that's why this podcast is around , man , because I love talking to you guys , the up and coming guys , and just seeing what you know kind of life you guys have , full of life , and what you guys are capable of doing . You know , and when you guys hit it big , you guys hit it big .
You know so for sure and and I feel I feel when I first saw you , dude , you were that guy and you are , and it's great to see that you and jc are like two peas in a pod man going one , two punch in the bull riding system in washington . Dude , that's pretty , pretty awesome . So keep it up , dude .
All right , anything I missed out , anything you want to add , man .
Dude , I can't think of anything off the top of my head .
Well , hey , during this , the later part of the high school rodeo scene , I want you and JC on . Dude , try to make that happen . I want to . I want you guys on so we can figure out you know who's victorious . And my book , you guys are both victorious . I mean to you know , talk trash and still , you know be six points behind or ahead . It's .
It's pretty cool that you know be six points behind or ahead . It's it's pretty cool that you know the relationship that you guys have , but either together or separate . Jc knows I've wanted him on , but , dude , I've been on the longest and here you are . Dude , I can't . The future's bright .
I can't wait to see where you go , even though you're going to be taking your talent down to Texas and Oklahoma . I think you should stay with the big dogs in Treasure Valley or , you know , blue Mountain we'll see no guarantees yet . But that's just me . That's just me . But you know these boys up here . They're different breed , so give it a shot .
I'm pretty sure parents will appreciate anything you do , especially if you're up here or down there . They'll still cheer you on . But I get it . You want more rides , you want more opportunities , and Texas is where it's at dude .
Right , it's not set in stone yet , so there's no guarantee that I don't stay up here , but we'll see , okay .
Well , keep , keep me posted , man , and I'll be on the lookout for the high school rodeo . I got a few barrel racers down here that compete , so been been trying to make my way to the high school rodeo the first ones so I'll hopefully run into you . And yeah , man , it's been great having you on .
We can talk a little longer if you want , but you're in the truck till next time , connor . Yes , sir , thank you for having me . Yes , and dude tear up CCT . I'll be paying attention well yes , sir all right , man take it easy . You too Take care .