Growing up in an Amish family, Willy Ropp spent countless hours milking cows by hand, plowing the fields at the family farm and driving teams of mules.
He eventually left the Amish way of life, but several things from his upbringing have stayed with him, including cowboy fever.
That’s why these days Ropp is a professional bull rider. His career has taken him all over the United States and to five countries; on Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 23 and 24, it will bring him to Albany. The Times Union Center will host the Super Bull series, in which top riders have eight seconds to ride their bulls and impress the judges. Albany is the first stop of the new year on an 11-month tour, with the series’ finale being held in Roanoke, Va., on March 19 and 20.
Ropp, 28, remembers watching bull riders on television when he was younger, but he never imagined he could be one himself. That changed after a couple of his friends started riding bulls at a local rodeo in Missouri. Ropp was intrigued and went down to check it out.
After watching for just a little while, `I knew that was what I wanted to do,` he said.
So Ropp decided to go to rodeo school. His parents, though, weren’t thrilled with that idea. They warned Ropp about how dangerous the sport was.
`They did a pretty good job scaring me,` he said with a laugh.
But he had already paid a bunch of money to the school, and he had a buddy who was going to go with him, so Ropp forged ahead with his plan.
He remembers his introduction to bull riding being only slightly less intimidating than that talk with his parents. There were about a half dozen bulls, `and they pointed to one with big old horns and told me to get on that,` he said.
But Ropp took to the sport pretty naturally. He acknowledges `it’s not all roses` ` he’s broken his femur and suffered lots of other, smaller injuries ` but he can’t imagine anything he’d rather do.
`You can make a good living,` he said, noting that a single event can have purses as high as $30,000 or $45,000.
Of course, riders don’t make much money unless they can stay on their bulls long enough to earn high marks from the judges. To hear Ropp tell it, the secret to staying on a bull is mainly mental.
`You train your mind not to think,` he said. `Your mind will play tricks on you. You train your body and mind to react. You gotta have faith in yourself.`
It’s impossible to know when you’re going to get `hung up and beat around,` Ropp said. If you’re constantly worrying about that, you’ll be tense and more apt to fly off the animal.
So instead, he tries to enter each match with a clear head, letting the chips fall where they may.
`Most of all, it’s a mind game,` he said. `You really, really want to be confident.`
Of course, you don’t want to be too confident ` Ropp stressed that there’s a fine line between confidence and cockiness, and it’s important for bull riders to straddle that line.
There’s no one to really help him walk that line. `We don’t have coaches or anything,` he said.
That leaves Ropp to his own devices so far as practicing and getting better. What he’s found is that he doesn’t particularly like to spend his off time riding, as he’ll lose that looseness that he so covets.
`I really try to meditate a lot,` he said of the hours he spends away from arenas. He also does some public relations work for the associations with which he rides, granting interviews and advancing the sport.
To that end, he promised an exciting show in Albany.
`It’s a competition, man vs. beast,` he said. `I guarantee they’ll be sitting at the edge of their seat.`
Doug McClaine, the assistant general manager of the TU Center, is betting on that. McClaine noted that the arena has hosted professional bull riding for years and was happy to welcome it back.
`The past success and excitement professional bull riding has brought to area fans proves the quality of the event,` he said.
Saturday’s show starts at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday’s show kicks off at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20, $30 and $45 before the event and $2 more on the day of the show. They can be purchased at the box office, online at www.timesunioncenter-albany.com or by phone at 1-800-30-EVENT. “