Sam Rodeo Team Has International Flavor

Yvan Jayne at National College Finals Rodeo

One of the first memories of one of the Sam Houston State University rodeo team's most accomplished performers was riding horses. His mother and father were both trick riders.

When he was only 14 he too became a trick rider, dressing in Native American costumes and amazing crowds with his spinning turns on a saddle, standing and upside down riding, and the whole repertoire of tricks made famous in the United States years ago by Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

Quite an all-American story, it seems. One that might have occurred in Laramie, Wyoming or Fort Stockton, Texas. Except that it happened in Cuges les Pins, near Marseilles and the French Riviera.

Yvan Jayne did all this in his country before coming to the United States as an exchange student five years ago.

When he was in Magnolia High School he won the bareback riding title for the Texas High School Rodeo Association. He had scholarship offers from schools in Colorado, Missouri, and Texas, but chose to travel just up the road to Sam Houston State University, where he is now nearing graduation.

The Sam Houston State rodeo team claims more national team titles than any other National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association school. This year marks the 50th anniversary of its first national individual title. Team coach Roger Hanagriff said Jayne fit right in.

Yvan (pronounced Evin, like Kevin) and his teammates will be taking on other Texas and Louisiana schools this week in Sam Houston State's collegiate rodeo, with performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 2 p.m. Saturday at the Walker County Fairgrounds. Tickets are $5 advance at Cavender's and the alumni office on campus and $7 at the gate.

Jayne competes in both the bareback and saddle bronc events, and is one of the top performers in the NIRA's Southern Region. He has qualified for the National Finals Rodeo each of his three years at SHSU, and finished second in the Southern Region in 2002.

"It takes so much time," he said of his sport. "We think of it as 8 seconds, but there's lots of traveling, planning, practicing. It takes a lot of hard work."

He lifts weights and runs to keep his 5-11, 160-pound frame in shape, and works out on a mechanical bucking dummy. A minor ankle sprain in 2002 has been his only injury.

Jayne takes his pickup and camper on trips that average 1,000 miles almost every weekend, except summers when he goes back to France to visit family and friends and do some teaching in rodeo schools there.

After completing his degree in agriculture business in December, he plans to start work on an advanced degree, continue collegiate rodeoing, and "hit the road hard" as a pro rodeoer after receiving his master's. He is already a member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, and has had success there, especially at the Mesquite Rodeo near Dallas.

Last year he earned $5,000 for his riding efforts as a pro, and also is paid expenses as a SHSU rodeo team member. College rules allow students to also be paid as professionals.

Yvan and Leslie Cronin, a student/secretary in the SHSU agriculture department, are planning a December 04 wedding. Someday when he hangs up his spurs, he would like to teach agriculture and/or French at a community college, preferably at one that has a rodeo team he can also coach.

While we may think of the sport of rodeo for its connection to the American West, Jayne competes alongside cowboys from Australia, Brazil, Canada, and Mexico. He points out that trick riding goes back to Mongolian horsemen of several centuries ago.

His father has gone into the business of producing stock for the growing sport of rodeo in Europe, he said, but his family supports his efforts here.

"They're proud," he said. "There are not many French guys who go to the United States and get college educations."

Especially working their way through college riding bucking horses.

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SHSU Media Contact: Frank Krystyniak
Oct. 8, 2003
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