Rance Maddocks, First Generation Bull Rider

Adrenaline, excitement, a screaming crowd and a timer; the professional bull rider’s day at work includes eight seconds of holding on and counting down before packing up and driving to the next rush.

Rance Maddocks, a 21-year-old bull rider from Hecla, S.D. says those eight seconds can last an eternity. Maddocks has been riding since he was 8, but didn’t start rodeoing until he was a bit older.

“I was the first person in my family to actually rodeo, but I grew up—my whole family had farms and my mom and dad owned a ranch, so I grew up around livestock, agriculture and stuff,” he said after his ride at the San Angelo Rodeo Saturday.

As a first generation bull rider, Maddocks was met with a bit of reluctance from his parents starting out, but says they have been supportive. "My mom always gets nervous if I don’t call her right after the rodeo and stuff," he laughed.  He had known from early on that this was what he wanted to do and has been at it ever since. His initial interest came at age 2, when he says he saw a cowoby ride a bull on television. Since then he's been hooked. 

“For a few years, I just got on—like when we’d bring the cows home from pasture, I’d get on the calves in the coral, nothing fancy,” he said. “Then I started going to little amateur rodeos—like little play days—then got on to roping steers and moved up junior bulls and eventually ended up riding bulls. “

Nowadays, Maddocks tours the states competing in over 150 rodeos a year. He describes the feeling when he’s waiting in the arena and he knows he’s up next.

“It’s a lot of adrenaline,” he says. “It’s really exciting, especially once it starts narrowing down to you and you’re up next. It really lights a fire up under you. It’s just really exciting—a lot of anticipation and a lot of excitement.”

Once on the back of the bull, Maddocks says the eight seconds seem to last forever, and indeed some rides seem longer than others. Recently, at the Fort Worth Rodeo, Maddocks’ ride seemed particularly long, he said.  “It felt like I rode the bull for 15 seconds before the whistle blew. I don’t even know [why it seemed so long]. I just felt like the whistle was about to blow and then five jumps later it finally blew,” he said.

Although the bulls are all individualistic, Maddocks says they do each have their own characteristics.  “You kind of have an idea [of what an animal’s like], but they can definitely switch it up too and do something completely different, so you kind of want to go in open minded and just ride them jump for jump,” he says.

In San Angelo, he drew a bull that a friend of his had ridden the year prior. Maddocks said his friend had described the bull’s behavior pretty accurately but he just didn’t have a good run and fell off.

Despite not making it far in San Angelo, Maddocks is full of ambition for 2014. He says he wants to rodeo as hard as he can and make the National Finals.