God, Family, Horses: The Work That Matters
Cesar de la Cruz
Written and Photographed by: Dee Yates
In the shadow of the Thomas & Mack Center, where the best ropers in the world gather to chase dreams and dollars, Cesar de la Cruz stands apart. Not because he lacks the talent or the drive to compete at the highest level, but because he has discovered something far more valuable than another championship buckle. He has learned the quiet wisdom of knowing when to let go.
Born into the rich roping lineage of Tucson, Arizona, where his uncles George and Victor Aros made their marks as NFR qualifiers, and where his grandfather Vic competed in the Turtle Pro Rodeo Association before the PRCA, de la Cruz grew up understanding that roping was more than recreation. It was identity. It was escape. For a kid coming up in a rough neighborhood, the arena represented possibility, a path toward something better. From the moment his grandfather first placed a rope in his hands and helped him train a pony at age 11, de la Cruz knew exactly what he wanted from life. The choice was clear, unwavering, absolute. And he achieved it beyond measure. By age 22, he had qualified for his first National Finals Rodeo, the youngest heeler to reach that pinnacle in years. Over the next decade and a half, he would return eight more times, becoming a nine-time NFR qualifier who accumulated over one million dollars in career earnings with the PRCA. He won the California Rodeo Salinas with Derrick Begay, claiming the average title with a time of 42.8 seconds on five head. He won the legendary Cheyenne Frontier Days, the “Daddy of ‘Em All,” twice, first in 2006 with Colter Todd and again in 2010 with Derrick Begay, joining an elite group of team ropers including Jade Corkill, Jake Barnes, and Clay Tryan who have claimed multiple championships at one of rodeo’s most prestigious rodeos. He claimed NFR round wins in 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2013, finishing as high as second in the world standings in 2007 with $165,790 in earnings. He won Pendleton, Prescott, Redding, the Justin Boots Championships in Omaha, the National Western Stock Show in Denver. He topped the PRCA regular season standings in 2011 as the number one heeler with $118,754. The list goes on, each victory another confirmation that the kid from the rough Tucson neighborhood had made good on his escape plan.
Grandpa Victor and Grandma Yolanda’s dream was to get their boys to the National Finals Rodeo—and so far, they’ve gotten two boys and one grandson there.
“This is what I was going to do,” he reflects without hesitation. “It was my way out.” While his high school classmates chased basketballs and footballs across fields and courts, de la Cruz went straight home every afternoon, changed into his cowboy clothes, and got outside. He had a big lead steer, some goats, and a singular focus that separated him from his peers. “I knew I was going to do this,” he says. “There was no plan B.”
That determination came with a price, one he paid at age 12 when his thumb was severed in a roping accident. His mother Zenida, a nurse, knew exactly what to do. She packed the mangled digit in ice while his stepfather Larry nearly passed out at the sight. Uncle George, who had lost his own thumb in a similar incident, offered hard advice: “If it’s not good, just leave it off. Don’t put it back on.” The surgeons agreed. They removed what remained. Two weeks later, de la Cruz was roping again.
It was the first of many physical tolls the sport would exact. He cut the tip of his pinky off at Reno Rodeo in his 20s. He broke every finger on his right hand. His pinky became so calcified with bone deposits that it now requires surgery he continues to postpone. “Months” of downtime, he estimates, time he is not yet willing to surrender. The hand that swings his rope tells a story written in scars and breaks, a testament to the relentless pursuit of perfection Uncle George demanded. “If you want to win, you have to catch a cow,” George taught him. “Don’t miss. Catch. You’re not allowed to miss.”
and ride, discovering their own passion for the sport, and for years, Cesar was watching it happen from hotel rooms and truck stops scattered across America while Arena managed everything at home. “Between my clinics & rodeos, I can’t always be there,” de la Cruz explains, “Arena is always making sure they’re getting to all the rodeos and making sure the schoolwork is done. None of it would happen without her!”
“I wasn’t liking rodeo and being gone from the family,” he admits. “I missed the whole boys growing up. Now that they were wanting to rope and ride, and I was like, man, I don’t want to miss this.” The realization forced a reckoning. He sold his highest-level heel horse, a beautiful buckskin that Junior Nogueira would ride to back-to-back BFI victories. It was the kind of horse every roper dreams of owning, a once-in-a-generation athlete. Selling him meant slowing down. It meant starting over with younger, greener horses that would take years to develop. It meant choosing presence over performance. It meant being there to help Arena, who had been shouldering the load alone for too long.
“I did a complete 180,” de la Cruz says. “I wasn’t enjoying rodeo there for a little while. It was kind of getting where I was hating what I was doing. I loved roping but I hated being gone.” For the past five years, he has kept his Pro Rodeo card in his pocket, focusing instead on developing horses, coaching ropers of all levels, and being present for his three sons. With both parents now actively involved, the boys have flourished. Camilo, now 15 and competing in his first year of high school rodeo, has already won state championships in multiple events and placed sixth in the nation in 22-long rifle shooting. Gio, 13, partnered with his older brother to win the state team roping title in the junior high division. Zorro, 11, is coming up through the ranks with the same determination that defined his father’s youth.
The boys rise each morning and saddle their own horses without being asked. Camilo rides four. Gio rides three. Zorro has a couple. They understand that excellence requires daily devotion, that championships are built in countless small moments of practice and preparation. They learned this from watching both parents, from seeing their mother coordinate rodeo schedules with shooting competitions with schoolwork with everything else required of junior high and high school rodeo competitors.
Arena, gets in the box with the boys, pushing thousand-pound horses around in corners, making sure they understand their draws and redraws, teaching them the details that separate good ropers from great ones. She knows how to hook up a neck rope properly, having roped calves herself. She gets the film done. She understands the game from every angle because she lived it, because her family still lives it, putting on weekly ropings every Tuesday at their place in Maricopa. “She’s an awesome rodeo mom,” de la Cruz says with unmistakable pride.
He calls her Mama Bear because she is sweet and kind until someone tresspasses on her boys, and then she is something fierce and protective. “Don’t mess with them babies,” he warns, laughing. The boys are all mama’s boys, and it shows in how they interact with her, in the respect they show her knowledge and her toughness. “Without a doubt, the boys could not be as successful as they’ve been doing without Mama Bear,” de la Cruz says. Their success is built on her foundation as much as his.
In choosing to stay home, de la Cruz has discovered a second calling that may ultimately define his legacy more than any championship he could have won. He has become a full-time rodeo coach, traveling to Louisiana and Montana and points across the country to conduct clinics for junior rodeo kids and adults learning to rope for the first time. He helps out at Central Arizona College and works with ropers at every level, teaching them that the foundation of great roping is not the loop but the horse.
“If you’re going to learn how to do it right, we’re going to rope the dummy, put the loop on the ground, and then we’ve got to get after this horsemanship stuff,” he explains. “Stopping, turning, spinning. I try to get a lot of these kids to spend time with these cow horse people, cutters, reiners, because once you understand how to maneuver your horse, ride your horse, the game gets easier.” It is a lesson he is learning alongside his students, acknowledging that he spent too much of his early career relying on his left hand instead of his legs. “I learned how to use my left hand almost too much and not enough of my legs,” he admits. “So I’m learning that in the second half of my career.”
The work is painstaking, methodical, grounded in principles that run counter to instant gratification. He rides his horses for an hour or two before ever swinging a rope on them, especially the young ones. He focuses on bending, flexibility, stopping without pulling on the reins. On the youngest horses, he might rope only one or two steers before putting them away. The slower approach, he has learned, is actually faster. “It’s more horsemanship in this game and less roping, believe it or not,” he insists. “If you ride good, your roping will be better.”
His favorite mount is Squirt, a five-year-old out of an Epic Leader stallion and an old Poco Bueno mare who possesses the kind of versatility every horseman dreams of creating. “You can run barrels on him. You can head and heel,” de la Cruz says. “We’re actually going to start him in the breakaway soon.” Squirt has become his mount for the biggest ropings, the horse he believes can compete at the BFI during his crucial six-year-old year.
De la Cruz and Arena homeschool their three boys now, a decision born from the collision between rodeo schedules and school calendars. When Camilo won sixth place in the nation in 22-long rifle shooting, competing on Fridays, and the family needed to leave for rodeos on Thursdays and Fridays, the public school system balked. “So the only option for rodeo kids is homeschool,” he recalls. The choice has given the boys freedom to rope more, to travel to events, to socialize with other rodeo families, to live the life their parents once lived but with something neither had growing up: both parents present for every step of the journey.
The de la Cruz family spends summers in Montana, escaping Arizona’s brutal heat for mountain mornings cool enough to require a sweatshirt. They fish several times a week, sometimes every day, letting the boys be boys, letting the horses be horses, finding the balance between work and play that creates sustainable excellence. When they return to Arizona in the fall, Montana is already seeing snow while Casa Grande still bakes in 100-degree heat.
At home in their arena, de la Cruz is passing down more than rope skills. He is teaching his sons about patience, about the long view, about building something that lasts. He watches for horses that are tight-tailed naturally, the ones that tuck and turn off the fence with their hindquarters engaged. It is a lesson he learned from Randon Adams, the world champion heeler who would not buy a horse that did not possess that natural inclination. “It’s hard to teach one to slide 15 feet if they’re not bred to do it,” de la Cruz explains. He looks for young horses with the right temperament, the ones that seem to want the job rather than being forced into it. He takes them trail riding, lets them experience life outside the arena, eases them into roping through their three-year-old year with slow steers and pin-roping rather than throwing them into the box too soon.
The boys have a tremendous support system beyond their parents. Both sets of grandparents attend rodeos, cheer them on, and have helped them acquire horses. Cesar’s mother Zenida and stepfather Larry, who stepped in to raise him when Cesar was just 10 years old, provide the same steady support they gave their own son. Arena’s parents Jeff and Pauline bring the Robertson family’s deep rodeo knowledge to every event. “I think sometimes if you have a good support system, you don’t need lots and lots of money,” de la Cruz reflects. “If you can kind of get the right support and kind of help here and there, a few sponsorships and stuff like that, you can get up and down the road and be successful.”
In his teaching, de la Cruz has discovered that people learn differently. Some need technical terms and detailed explanations. Others need it kept simple. Many need to be shown because verbal instruction does not penetrate. The work of breaking down his craft into teachable moments has made him a better horseman, a better father, a better version of himself.
When he looks back on the choice to slow down, to sell that buckskin, to trade unlimited potential for limited presence, de la Cruz expresses no regret. He believes God blessed him with talent in the rodeo arena and blessed him with three beautiful boys and a partner who understands this life from the inside out, and his job is to be the best steward he can be of all those gifts. “I felt like I was put here to rope,” he says, “but then when I started having kids, that was more important to be a dad and be the best husband I possibly could be and giving them the best opportunity they can have to be successful in life.”
The admission reveals a truth that too many in professional rodeo discover too late: that the sport can be a selfish game, demanding everything while giving back only what it chooses. “It’s all about you,” he says. “You need to go here and you need to go there. When I slow down I can be a little bit more a better dad and I can be there, be more present. I wasn’t enjoying rodeo there for a little while. I loved roping but I hated being gone.”
Now, at the World Series of Team Roping in Las Vegas, de la Cruz competes on borrowed horsepower, riding an outside horse owned by Neil and Jody Wanless. He ropes with Jackson Tucker in the World Series Open, excited for the opportunity but not desperate for the outcome. The money would help pay bills, certainly, but winning and losing no longer define his worth or dictate his happiness. He has found something more valuable than another trophy: peace with his choices, joy in his daily work, presence with his family.
When the arena announcer says his name, when the barrier drops and the steer breaks from the chute, de la Cruz still feels that familiar surge of adrenaline, that muscle memory built across decades of practice. He still hears Uncle George’s voice: “Don’t miss. Catch.” His scarred and broken right hand still swings that loop with precision, still places it more than throws it, still delivers two feet with the consistency that made his reputation. But now, when the run ends, when the time goes up on the board and the arena empties, he goes home to a wife who competed at the same level he did, who understands every sacrifice and every triumph, and to three boys who are learning that excellence is not just about winning. It is about showing up, day after day, putting in the work, being present for the people who matter most.
“When people talk about me 20 years from now, I hope they say I was a great roper, a good role model, and a good dad,” de la Cruz reflects. It is a legacy built not in the record books but in the arena of daily life, in the patient development of young horses and young men, in the quiet choice to value presence over prestige. For the kids roping goats in backyards across America, dreaming of the Thomas & Mack Center, he offers advice earned through both triumph and regret: “Keep dreaming. If you want it bad enough, you’ll get it. Surround yourself with champions and winners, and you’ll be one.”
But he also offers something more valuable than motivation. He offers permission to redefine success, to choose family over fame, to understand that the truest victory is not the one announced from in the arena, but the one lived in the accumulation of ordinary days spent doing what matters most. In an era when the sport demands more miles, more entries, more sacrifice than ever before, Cesar de la Cruz has become a champion of a different sort. He has mastered the art of staying present, of knowing when to rope and when to simply be, of building a partnership with Arena that honors both their competitive legacies while creating something even more valuable for their sons. It is a harder skill to learn than any his uncle ever taught him, and it may be the most important one he will ever pass along.
