Cowboy Diaries: Tyson Durfey -- Roped Sedated Calves at Age Four

Mandy Oaklander

Tyson Durfey, Tie-down roper

Name: Tyson Durfey
Age: 27
Hometown: Savannah, Missouri
Event: Tie-down roper

For me, rodeo was a family deal. My dad rodeoed, my grandfather rodeoed. My mother ran barrels, my dad ran calves. From the time I can remember, I was riding horses and roping calves. We were brought up doing it. It's a way of life, and how I choose to live my life.

Tonight, I won second. I was hoping for first, but if you can't win first, second's always good.

I've been training to be a rodeo cowboy since I was four years old, seriously. You just get on your horse and start riding around, you swing your rope, and you start roping. I used to catch about one a day when I was four. I might have run 100, but I'd catch one.

At age four, the calves I would rope would be a lot slower. They'd be real slow. My dad used to take a calf and then give it a drug to calm it down, so that it'd just like, walk real nice and slow. It'd just slow them down so I could, you know, practice at four years old.

My craziest rodeo story was when I was in two rodeos in Canada and they were three hours apart from each other. I actually got done at one and had two hours to make it to the other one. I drove 100 miles per hour in between and made it, and won both of them. It was probably one of my best days.

I've shattered my left ankle, broke my left leg, tore my left knee up, broke both my collarbones, and broke and dislocated fingers. Not anything like a bullrider, but you still get hurt.

America needs to know that cowboys are just human like everyone else. We just work hard and try to be the best that we can be. The only difference is that we grew up in a roping pen or riding bulls or something like that. We try to be really polite and do good things and good things come back to you. It's the same whether you're from the city or the country.