Elliott transitions into life in the PBR
Following emotional year, Nebraska bull rider among world's best
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PUEBLO, Colo. (April 9, 2008) - As goes a bull rider's personal life, so goes his professional life.
“Last year was just a transition year,” said Dustin Elliott. “It was definitely a life-changing year.”
It was the first full season on the Built Ford Tough Series for the former PRCA World Champion; however, due in large part to a serious family issue, Elliott wasn’t competing at anywhere near the level he was capable of.
“My wife and I had our twins (last year) and they were born three months early,” he explained, “so we spent two months in the hospital in Lincoln (Neb.). It was pretty tough to focus on bull riding.”
The kids – a twin boy and girl – spent a full two months in the hospital, and although Elliott would travel to PBR events on the weekend, he had a hard time focusing.
Fortunately, the young married couple had a lot of support during that emotionally trying period.
The school district that Elliott's wife Cynthia teaches in, which normally gives a short period of time off for maternity leave, gave her the entire second half of the school year off in order to be with her children.
By summer, Elliott felt more relaxed about what was a rather tense situation and, as a result, his riding average slowly began to improve. Then, in early September, he had done well enough on the Challenger Tour that he made the jump to the BFTS in Reno, where he promptly finished third.
“Focus-wise you had to put it past you,” said Elliott, who also noted that his twins are now running and crawling all over everything, “but it was tough and I definitely showed it. I didn’t ride very well last year.”
Oh, what a difference a year makes.
This season, Elliott enters the Omaha Classic ranked 16th in the world. In 15 events he’s finished in the Top 15 six times, two of which were Top-5 finishes.
More importantly, the Omaha event is a hometown event of sorts for the Oregon transplant, who met his wife while attending Chadron State College (a Division 2 school in a small town with a population of only 3,000) and moved four hours Southeast to North Platte, Neb., soon thereafter.
This weekend, he and Cynthia plan to bring the twins – Ethan and Emma – to the event. They will be joined by numerous family members – his mother is flying in for the event from Alaska – and various friends from around the state.
Elliott, who likens bull riding fans from Nebraska to the rabid Cornhusker football fans, knows all too well that everyone at Qwest Center will be supportive of his effort to get his first BFTS event win of 2008.
“It’s kind of distracting when you’ve got that many people cheering for you,” he admitted. “You’d think that it’d be easier when you have that many people cheering, but – for me, personally – my biggest fear is failure. I don’t want to let those people down.
“I don’t want to fall off and look stupid. I want to give them the show that they’re expecting. If you’re in the Top 15, 16 in the world standings, then a guy needs to ride like it.”
Elliott would love nothing more than to replicate the success L.J. Jenkins had a few weeks ago in his home state of New Mexico. An event win for Elliott would go a long way toward dispelling the notion that it’s tough to win in your hometown.
“I have my family behind me,” he said, “and, there again, everybody is healthy and doing good.
"My prediction would be an event win. Being positive you feel like you’re going to ride every bull and win every event. It doesn’t work out that way, but you have to set your mind to do that.”
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