I don’t know if any of you older guys might relate to this, but I have to tell you I’m painfully competitive. I resist negativity, especially in the sense of “I’m getting too old to do this.” My deal has always been to think, “What advantages do I have at my age?” And, “What do I need to do to get back to where I’m as sharp as any guy out there?”
One thing you might discover after taking a few years away from competitive roping is that you can kind of slide down the ladder. In team roping, the top heelers will usually pair up with the best headers. If for some reason you didn’t rope for a season or sold your good horse, you can be sure that everybody knows it. In my case, I needed shoulder surgery and the next thing I knew, I didn’t quite have the jackpot partners I used to get.
No matter your classification, if you’re trying to get a green horse seasoned, everyone at the roping soon knows it. They will know you’re not mounted or they’ll see you fighting your head and soon it’s almost like you’ve got a red dot on your forehead that says, “stay away from me.”
This little blow to your identity can affect your confidence. Even someone like me, who can win anywhere against the best in the business, can end up just trying to hang onto that mindset of “this is still where I belong.”
But try to do it. I’m 56, but after taking a few years to focus on my business and my schools, I feel like I’m still in great shape. And I know I never want to look back and regret not trying one more time this season. I still enjoy competing against the best guys in the world. I’m not at the circuit rodeos or ducking off somewhere – I’m right there with the best of them. I find myself in this rebuilding mode and it’s been interesting to me what it takes to climb back up that ladder – and what I’m willing to sacrifice to do that.
Clay Tryan is too honest to just tell you what you want to hear. So about four months ago as we stood around, someone asked him what it would take for me to rope at the gold-buckle level again. I was glad he said I was one of the few guys who could make that kind of comeback. But then he really made me think.
“Allen would need to push everything back – Smarty and his schools and his ministry – to do it,” Clay said. “It’s a 24/7 job for me to stay on top and be Clay Tryan. It’s all I can do to be ‘husband’ and ‘dad’ and only rope.”
He’s right. If I’m going to keep juggling all these other balls in the air, I need to quit beating myself up for not winning. And you do, too.
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