WAVERLY, Kan. – The edge is a tricky place to be. One step in the right direction can build confidence and sustain hope. One awkward step can spell disaster.
Jess Pope was on that ledge most of the 2024 rodeo season. In fact, it wasn’t until the final few weeks of the ProRodeo campaign that he felt comfortable on the mountaintop instead of looking at the canyon below. It was a different year for the 2022 bareback riding world champion, but he will return to the National Finals Rodeo for the fifth straight time focused and ready for excellence.
“Rodeo is the coolest job in the world; the places you see and the people you meet are so awesome,” said Pope, 26, of Waverly. “But there’s something about being able to go home and just stretch back out a little bit. Just 48 hours at home will change a guy’s attitude, make them want to come back and be hungry because it reminds you when you get back out there and why you’re doing it.
“It’s a job, and I make a good living doing it, but it’s one of those things that a guy’s got to sometimes come home, refresh, rejuvenate, clear his whole mind of everything and start back fresh the next week.”
When the regular season closed Sept. 30, Pope was sixth in the world standings with $168,154. It reflects on the statement he made about supporting his wife, Sydney, while competing for every dollar he has earned, but there were times over the course of the 12-month campaign that things weren’t going quite that well.
Pope didn’t have the success he’d hoped during the winter months, and spring wasn’t much better. He was behind the eight ball by the time the summer run kicked off in mid-June, well down the money list and knowing he’d have to climb a pretty steep hill to be among the top 15 on the money list in order to return to the NFR, the sport’s grand championship that takes place Dec. 5-14 in Las Vegas.
“It just seemed like I started the year off not drawing good, and that just stuck with me forever and ever,” he said. “I didn’t hardly rodeo in all the month of April and not much of May. I entered all the (springtime) rodeos in California, but I never had one drawn that I thought I should spend the money on to fly out there.
“There was never a chance where I thought I had to win a really good check. It worked out, because I got to spend time at home with the family and work on the place Sydney and I bought.”
By early July, he was being matched with horses that worked better. He earned about $20,000 over the week of July 4, known as Cowboy Christmas for its series of lucrative rodeos.
“I had the second best Fourth of July I’ve ever had, and nobody even noticed it,” said Pope, who credits part of his success to his sponsors, DewEze, Mahindra, Roxor, JD Hudgins Brahman Bulls, Graham School for Cattlemen, Resistol, Justin, Bloomer, Panhandle and Rock & Roll Clothing, Veach’s Custom Leather, Emporia Livestock Sales and T Bar T Cattle Co. “I was playing catch-up, and I kept winning enough.”
He kicked off August with a big win in Dodge City, Kansas, the largest PRCA rodeo in his home state. He rode Championship Pro Rodeo’s Hooey Rocks for 91 points in the final round to win the title and $6,600 and earned more than $11,000 that week at events closer to his family’s place.
“That next week, I went to six rodeos and didn’t win a single dime,” he said. “During the third weekend, I hit for a big lick, then the next week, I won about $600. Once September hit, it seemed like they drew me a good one and a good chance everywhere I went.”
After the first weekend of August, Pope had scurried up the money list to 20th in the world standings. He continued to plug away, a testament to his fortitude and his talent. After the first weekend of September, he had virtually secured his spot at the NFR and was inside the top 10 after winning the playoff series event at the Washington State Fair in Puyallup, Washington, where he collected $16,450 over a long weekend.
“After I won Puyallup, I thought I had the NFR made,” said Pope, who attended Missouri Valley College in Marshall on a rodeo scholarship. “There was never a doubt in my mind once I started drawing good that I was going to make the NFR. It was a matter of me having to go rodeo and then win, which is what I’m good at.
“Then I got to Sioux Falls (South Dakota) and started crunching the numbers after I didn’t win a check on the first night, and I realized I was dang sure on the bubble again.”
Cowboys are matched with their bucking horses by a random, computer-generated draw. For a good part of the year, the PCs weren’t pulling the numbers Pope needed. When that changed, so did the results. After blanking on opening night of the Cinch Playoff Series Championship, he reached out to his longtime friend and traveling partner, three-time world champion Tim O’Connell.
“We had a game plan of how we were gong to do things, and he dang sure reminded me, ‘Just go win; that’s what you’re supposed to be doing,’ ” Pope said.
The pep talk worked. On Night 2 with everything in the balance, Pope won the round and advanced to the semifinals of the tournament-style rodeo. He then secured a spot in the finale, which he won, and pocketed $39,625 in southeastern South Dakota. Puyallup and Sioux Falls paid him a combined $56,075 and shot him into contention for another world title.
“I just kept my nose to the grindstone,” he said. “I’ll be the first one to say it: Through July, I was ready to go home. I was sick of it. I was having to rodeo by myself, because all my traveling partners were hurt. I had my wife come out on the road with me.”
At that critical stage, he had a conversation with another veteran bareback rider, R.C. Landingham, who is going to his fifth NFR. Pope found Landingham’s advice to be just what he needed to push through the final two months of the campaign.
“We have had a lot of talks and were really good friends, but we became better friends,” Pope said. “Being able to listen to him helped, and I had him there to keep me positive. I’m very thankful for that. This was the hardest year of rodeo that I’ve got to experience. There are a lot of good, young guys out there, and everybody else kept drawing good and winning. It was real easy to get negative.
“But everything comes full circle, and there dang sure was a plan. There was something I had to learn and a plan that I had to follow for it to work, and I’m sure glad I did because I learned a lot this year.”
He has proven in a short five years that he is one of the elite bareback riders in the business. His worst finish to date was third in the world standings after his inaugural NFR in 2020. He’s a three-time NFR average winner by having the best 10-round cumulative score; the only time he didn’t win was last year when he was second in the aggregate race and second in the world standings.
He has $820,301 in NFR earnings, an average of $20,508 per night for 40 rounds. He will return for 10 December nights in the City of Lights, and he knows what it takes to be the ace in the hole near the strip.
“This was one of those deals where I could just put a label or an explanation point on the end of my year,” Pope said. “Everyone better look the hell out when it’s time to go to Las Vegas.”