Rodeo Bareback Riders on Incorporating Faith in Sport

The same rodeo bareback riders who fight for their seats must also fight for their success! They are world-class competitors at the mercy of their hand-held grips. Anthony Thomas is from Australia but now lives in Texas. The professional rodeo veteran has learned to maneuver the rugged uncertainty of both the ride and the life that comes with it.

Anthony explains, “Bareback riding is an ultimate test of man versus beast. You're putting yourself in an extremely labor-intensive, dangerous situation at all times - a blur of aggression and madness! You're going to go into this fight and you're going to win. And if not, you could end up badly hurt or killed. You have to have complete control in a completely uncontrollable situation.”  

Question: “That transfer over to the culture and lifestyle of rodeo?”
 
Anthony Thomas: “Yeah, for sure, there's a lot of camaraderie. We travel together and we compete against each other. You go from town to town, and rodeo-to-rodeo and you can just live a reckless lifestyle. We're on the road for over 200 days out of the year and so they have to be like your family. It's great for me to be able to be a mentor for them, not just in the sport entirely but in their spiritual life and their Christian walk as well.” 

Mark Foster has pastored and mentored rodeo cowboys for decades. Anthony was one of them, who now brings other competitive riders alongside his mentoring.

Question: “What is it about the cowboy life that really requires mentoring to navigate things?”

Mark Foster: “Rodeo life is not an easy life - there's a lot of challenges, there's a lot of temptations there, so it's really good for them to have some accountability and Anthony wants accountability! Anthony began to learn how as a real tough guy to turn to Jesus. And he's a great mentor to young cowboys.” 

Question: “Do you find yourself advising the way that you wished you could have been advised years ago?”

Anthony Thomas: “Yeah, absolutely. I came to America and I didn't even know how this whole game of rodeo worked. And so in this way of life everybody wants to muscle it out and be so strong and be tough and take care of things themselves and hold on to the one thing that they think that they can have control of and really you don’t get tough until you surrender those things! You have to surrender control everyday to God! The definition of faith says – to trust Him!” 

Waylon Bourgeois is new to the circuit and is this year’s frontrunner as Rodeo Bareback Rookie of the Year!   

Question: “What's the best advice Anthony has given you in living out your faith?”

Waylon Bourgeois: “There's a bunch of advice that he's given me, but if I had to pick one right now it would be ‘just be a better person than you were the day before.’ That really stood out to me. You take steps you never knew you could do. It drives me every time I pull up to the rodeo.” 

Question: “How does the companionship and even the accountability with him help you?”

Waylon Bourgeois:  “It's always good to have an older guy in the rig and a younger guy in the rig because the younger guy brings the want and he definitely has the fire, you know, he wants it. Experience, you know, he's been there done that. He's been riding bucking horses for 12 years now and– I'm definitely grateful to guide me and lead me in the right direction.”    

Question: “What are the challenges in making choices that you believe in, in the industry that you're in?”

Waylon Bourgeois: “Yeah, rodeo definitely has its bad and good. But life does too, you know. You can turn the other cheek and walk away from bad choices or you can stay close to God and make the right choices.”    

Question: “The very athlete that you're mentoring is your competitor! Why empower him?

Anthony Thomas: “It's my job as a Christian to add value to people's lives and be salt and light to the world. The more I can pour into his life and try to steer him away from the big mistakes that I made early in my career and in my life, the better off I'm going to be because the better he's doing, the better I’m going to do! If he's a successor from something he learned from me or through me, then that's a far greater success than winning a world title.”

Question: “You’re fearless competitors, you have to be. What does surrender mean to you?”

Waylon Bourgeois: “You surrender to a bucking horse and you're hitting the dirt real fast. But it's okay to surrender to God because He's going to achieve more things than you ever thought you could achieve. You don't want to show weakness, but God is our Lord and Savior and it's okay to show weakness to Him. In our weakness, He is made strong.”    

Anthony Thomas: “There's so many highs and lows. You might go two or three months without ever winning a check. You might be injured. You don't draw a horse that's good enough that you can win on. And no matter what happens, I can have the strongest warrior attitude because I have a God that created the whole world that's on my side. I know that if I surrender and die to self every day and put Jesus first in my life, no matter what happens, I'll always end up on top and I'll always be provided for.”  

Question: “How do you encourage people that have the opportunity to invest into somebody else's life?”

Anthony Thomas: “You have a platform right where you are. God's placed you in a perfect position right where you are. You don't have to achieve whatever it is you think in your head that you have to become before you can minister to somebody, talk to somebody about Jesus. And there's somebody watching, there's somebody around you, somebody in your circle of life that you can be the difference for.”