It’s dirty, fast, and your timing has to be perfect. It takes strength, focus, and more determination than most can muster. And for this young Callaway cowboy, all of those factors combine to form a passion that drives him to want to be the best.

Rodeo is a unique sport. When Dawson Doggett climbs on his horse and waits for the chute to open, there is no coach to get pointers from, no teammates to count on if he falls behind. It’s just him and his horse.

Doggett’s love of rodeo began to develop when he was just in fourth or fifth grade. “We lived on a ranch up by Stapleton and the Johnston family thought I would be good at bulldogging, so they started inviting me over and it just went on from there. I would go over to their place every now and then to practice bulldogging, and it was fun,” he shared.

When he got a little older, he participated in junior high rodeo in steer wrestling, which he explained is quite different from the high school level. “You’re in the chute with the steer, then they just let the steer out and you throw it,” Doggett said.

Doggett finished in second place at the Nebraska State High School Rodeo Finals in Burwell in June, securing himself a spot on the National Finals team representing Nebraska. The National Finals were held July 14-20 at the Sweetwater Event Center athlete throughout his high school career. Each of those sports incorporates a rigorous practice schedule into the pre-game activities. Rodeo, though, is different.

“You just find someone with a group of steers and you just keep running them over and over again, seven or eight times a night,” Doggett responded when asked how he prepares for an upcoming rodeo. “You have to have a good horse too. I have ridden many different horses from different people. The horse I’m riding right now I have been training for a while.”

What many people may not realize is that about a week before the state rodeo finals Doggett broke both bones in his arm. “I hopped down on a steer and the steer kind of rolled and smashed both of my bones in my right forearm. But I ended up competing in the finals and I thought I did pretty decent,” he said.

He bulldogged in the state finals with a blue cast on his arm, which Doggett said was “a little bit of a challenge.”

“It had been so recently broken that it did hurt quite a bit afterwards,” Doggett continued. “I just took ibuprofen or Advil to numb the pain a little bit. It ended up working out – I made it to Nationals!”

With the National Finals about four weeks after the state finals, Doggett said that gave his arm a chance to do quite a bit of healing. However, it also prevented him from being able to practice as much as he would have liked.

Doggett was the leader in the steer wrestling after the first go round at the National High School Rodeo Finals with a time of 4.44 seconds. He then followed that up with a time of 5.23 and was among the leaders heading into the short go on Saturday night. Unfortunately, a no time in the short go dropped him in the overall standings as he finished 17th in the average.

While that marked the end of his high school rodeo career, it is not the end of his career in rodeo. This fall Doggett will attend Southeast Community College in Beatrice on a full-ride scholarship. “I plan to attend some amateur rodeos and try to get my pro rodeo card. I want to be able to make the National Finals Rodeo in the next couple of years. It would be a dream of mine to win it, but I would just like to make it.”