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Rodeo is his whole life
HASKELL, Okla. (AP)--Steve Gussert says he started riding bucking animals at the age of 8 and never got thrown off the track of his dream.
It started in more-or-less the usual way.
"My dad built a feedlot at Coyle, and they'd have team roping every Saturday," Gussert said. One day, his father asked if he wanted to ride one of the steers; he said he definitely did.
He said his father's brief instructions included how to hold the rigging. "He said all you have to do is hold it to your nose."
But Gussert lost his grip and hit himself in the nose.
By the time he was 12, he was on the cover of a state newspaper supplement featuring kids in rodeo.
He soon made the high school finals and was on his way to the big time, but the weekend after the finals he suffered his first major rodeo injuries, four broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. So he had to sit out his first chance to participate in the high school nationals.
Much of his early personal experience with cattle came as a byproduct of his father's business.
"I grew up at the feedlot, and when the cows would come in, some of them were bred. You can't have a mama cow in a feedlot because they're just there to fatten up for slaughter, so I got to work with the calves when they were born."
Gussert moved into rodeo at Carl Albert State College. Even though he got a late start, he said, he finished second in the region and made the college finals in 1992.
He made the finals again the next year, this time from Southwestern Oklahoma State University, but after the first four rodeos of the following season he was injured when a bull stepped on his foot at Kellyville, where he was performing as a rodeo clown.
At one point, Gussert quit bucking horses for awhile and concentrated on bull riding. Gussert said he was among 15 U.S. bull riders who went on tour in Brazil in 1997.
"They really take care of you over there," he said.
His numerous injuries led to a knee reconstruction surgery in 2003, after which he resumed bareback competition and finished 20th for the year.
"I owe a lot to the orthopedic surgeons, and they've never really been publicized," he said. "I can ride again only because they redid my knees."
The weekend before his knee surgery, he placed in the first three rounds in the finals then was in surgery Monday morning.
Last winter, he got off to a good start with a second-place finish in Tulsa, but at Owasso, a horse went head over heels and broke his collarbone in four places.
He resumed competition before he was back in condition and ended up with a pulled groin muscle. That benched him until after the Fourth of July, but he came back to win five in a row and ended up in the top 15 for last year.
He's philosophical about his many injuries, though.
"When I rode bulls, I broke my nose four times. The first time, I got it set, and it hurt so bad I said I wouldn't do it again.
"Sure enough, a year later, I broke it again and didn't bother getting it set again after that."
Gussert realizes he may not have a lot of years left as a rodeo competitor, so he's moving into producing and instructing.
"I'm 34, and bareback is the most physical event," he said. "I'm not looking to quit anytime soon. But it'll come, and I'd like to have a stake in who's coming up in bareback."
The rodeo school he runs with Clayton Macon of Stigler is obviously important to him. He likes to talk about several students who've studied with him, including rodeo clown Chad Dowdy ("he's my little protege") and an African bareback and bull rider named Moonga Ndhlova, who is now "in the truck" with Gussert; meaning they travel to rodeos together.
"Most of my kids that come to the school are just getting started. I teach all the basic stuff. I can teach kids who've never been on a horse or the ones that just need some touching up. Some kids from Arkansas were barely 13 years old. I keep in touch with the kids from the school, try to find out what they're doing.
"Guys call and ask if we'd put on schools in their town. Up to now, it's just pretty much been around here." But he hopes the Internet will help spread the word.
Most of his schools are two-day events, but some run three. He said he and Macon approach their schools differently from most instructors, limiting enrollment to 12 or 15 rather than 50 so they can spend time with each student.
He also said he and Macon are talking about a weeklong rodeo camp that would include a rodeo just for the campers.
His future may hold a different kind of satisfaction from performing (he said he and his peers once received a standing ovation from more than 35,000 people in St. Tite, Quebec), but he says he's ready to roll with it.
En route to becoming a producer of rodeo stock, he says he's bought seven bucking horses and kept all seven after testing them with an electronic dummy.
His mares are bred to a stud that's "been to the big time."
"If these little horses buck like they did with the dummy, I'm going to have some good stock there," he said.
Date: 1/24/05
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