For the week of January 2 - 8, 2002

Bellevue bareback rider Kelly Wardell gears up for 2002

The buck starts here for Express "Athlete of the Year"

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By JODY ZARKOS
Express Staff Writer

If you took the heart of a lion, nerves of a cobra and coordination of a cat, you would come up with the breed of man known as a cowboy.

Kelly Wardell doing what he does best, sticking on the back of a bucking bronc. Courtesy photo by Dan Hubbell

 

It takes guts and determination to make it as a cowboy. Such diligence can be as rare as steak tartar in our modern world.

But Kelly Wardell of Bellevue looks and acts like he just stepped out of a time machine straight from the Wild West.

Dark, slim and square with a thick moustache and piercing eyes that would look at home over a dueling pistol, Wardell is 38 years old. It’s not young for a competitive cowboy, but Wardell is a man on a mission.

That mission, to become the best bareback bronc rider in the world, was largely achieved in 2001. For his outstanding season Wardell has been named Idaho Mountain Express "Athlete of the Year."

He qualified for his fourth National Finals Rodeo in December as the #1 bareback rider in the world with record regular-season earnings of $105,903.

It was Wardell’s best season ever in a 16-year career that has had as many twists and turns as a rank bull.

But Wardell’s dream of winning the gold buckle as an NFR champion and cashing in on a big payday will have to wait another year, due in part to unlucky injuries at the most inopportune time.

"I pulled my groin and my riding arm got stepped on in the fourth round. My whole right leg is purple," Wardell said. "But you have got to suck it up. There’s $13,000 up for grabs every night."

Wardell’s traveling partner and best friend, Lan LaJeunesse of Morgan, Utah ended up winning the 2001 world championship in bareback riding.

LaJeunesse said, "Kelly suffered things that don’t normally happen in bareback riding—freak things away from the wear and tear of normal rodeo."

Wardell, riding with a arm brace, ending up making six of 10 rides for 482 points at the NFR finals in Las Vegas. His best finish was a tie for fifth place. He pocketed $3,998.50.

In comparison, LaJeunesse won $86,585.70.

"I got to figure it was an awesome year," Wardell said. "I led for 360 days and I have a buckle that says season leader. It was just a tough ten days."

 

Staying healthy

Like any other contact sport, football or hockey, rodeo riders who are the healthiest are normally going to be the ones who turn in the best performance.

That’s especially true at the NFR which runs for 10 consecutive nights in Las Vegas every December and is rightly considered the pinnacle event on the Pro Rodeo Circuit.

Only 15 cowboys qualify for each event, based on their total earnings over a 12-month season starting in November.

Bareback riding, Wardell’s event, is considered one of the wildest and most grueling of all the rough stock events.

Riders must stay on a hell-bent bucking horse for eight seconds, one-handing a rigging cinched around the horse’s girth. The cowboy must also spur his horse out of the chute and during the ride.

It’s a sport which will test your mettle, mixing physical truth or dare with a psychological challenge like none other.

"Rodeo is way more of a mental sport just for the danger factor. It’s basically putting your life on the line every time you get on," Wardell remarked. "But you have to visualize what you want to do. Not think about what could happen."

The 5-10, 160-pound cowboy knows all too well what it’s like to be on the losing end against a pissed-off, half-ton horse.

Two years ago a horse rolled on him and sidelined him for nine long months. The hiatus gave Kelly time to reflect on his choice of careers.

"Sometimes I get teased. Guys will say to me, ‘When you gonna quit playing rodeo and get a real job’. It’s a sore subject.

"I think I’ll keep trying until I show everyone," Wardell said.

 

A great season

Wardell’s detractors had to keep their mouths firmly shut during Wardell’s record-setting run last season.

It started off with a bang with his win in the Winter Tour National Western Rodeo in Denver in January.

Wardell also collected the top prize in rodeos at Laughlin, Nev., Logandale, Nev., Calgary, Colorado Springs and Cheyenne, Wyo. to name a few, but his biggest payday came at the Copenhagen Tour Finals in Las Vegas in June.

Wardell scored 91 points on Bucking Horse of the Year Skoal Cool Alley to pocket $19,094 and, perhaps more importantly, come within two points of the all-time PRCA mark of 93 points set in 1974. Wardell’s previous best was 88.

"Your confidence is way high when everything is going right. I was healthy and drawing good horses," Wardell said.

By winning the winter finals in Las Vegas, Wardell qualified for the Olympic Command Performance Rodeo, Feb. 9-11 in Farmington, Utah. The event is held in conjunction with the 2002 Olympic Winter Games.

"I am pretty excited to ride in the Olympics and represent the United States," Wardell said.

The rodeo pits cowboys and cowgirls from the United States against their counterparts from Canada in seven events with $140,000 in prize money on the line.

 

A strong friendship

Wardell strongly identifies with athletes like Kurt Warner.

Warner is the St. Louis Rams quarterback who led his team to a Super Bowl championship, after toiling obscurely in the Arena Football League and more infamously as a supermarket stocker.

"No one thought he could do anything, but he did," Wardell said.

The man in the black hat has his supporters, however. His girlfriend of seven years, Barb Patterson, and traveling partner LaJeunesse, have never wavered in their support.

"Kelly is just a model cowboy and person," LaJeunesse remarked with the sincerity of a priest. "There is no better person. He doesn’t have one fault."

The pair has been rodeoing together for about five years and share a friendship that is as comfortable as your as an old pair of jeans.

"I spend more time with Lan than I do with Barb," Wardell said.

The pair keeps each other in check. Wardell is more of the organizer, taking care of the traveling details and everyday minutiae. Lan helps Wardell stay loose and focused.

"I rely on him for parts and he relies on me for parts," LaJeunesse said. "We just make a good combination."

Competition between the two is basically non-existent.

LaJeunesse remarked, "We don’t compete against each other, per se. We just compete against our horse. We keep each other up and going"

And going to rodeos.

Wardell entered LaJeunesse in the 2001 NFR competition while Lan was on vacation with his family in Hawaii.

It is a good thing he did.

The 31-year-old LaJeunesse captured his second world bareback title by winning three rounds and $86,585 at the NFR and finished on top of the overall standings with $185,556 in prize money—a PRCA season-earnings record.

"If it hadn’t been for Kelly, I wouldn’t have even went to the NFR," LaJeunesse said. "He took care of all my business. He is a class act."

 

Challenges ahead

Wardell figures he has about two more weeks to heal his battered body before he jumps back on the circuit at Denver and then on to Fort Worth, Texas.

He will draw aim on the NFR again and hopes he can make enough good rides and earn enough money to qualify.

A championship would be nice, redemption and reward for a long and challenging career, yes, and tangible proof that he is among the sport’s best bareback riders.

There’s another reason, one which is paramount in his mind and heart.

"What I really want to do is have a rodeo camp for kids. I was kind of hoping I could clean up at the NFR so I could get enough for a down payment," Wardell said.

"In bareback riding in general, kids aren’t getting enough help, and I really like helping kids."

It is Wardell’s dream to have a rodeo camp for kids, so they could learn the art of bareback, saddle bronc and bull riding.

"I was kind of depressed that I didn’t do it this year," said the man whose optimism belies his black hat.

"But there is always next year."

 

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