Tyler Turco can often be found trying to hook brown trout with his fly fishing rod in a creek outside of the University of Montana rodeo team’s practice facility in Lolo. He does this to pass the time before he helps run the chutes during rodeo practice for UM.
Being able to fly fish while at practice is an upside of being involved in rodeo at UM. How- ever, for Turco, the sport is anything but calm. In September of 2020, he suffered an arm injury while riding a saddle bronc.
In fact, this was Turco’s third injury that required surgery, a fact of the sport. However, the 24-year-old UM grad student, who still wears a bulky arm brace during competition, continues living the cowboy life, even when it leads to long recovery periods.
“It makes you think, ‘Should I be doing rodeo?’” he said.
In September, Turco placed his saddle on a bucking horse he was about to ride at the Tri-County Rodeo in Deer Lodge. He said a prayer to himself giving thanks to safe travels and his support team while asking for his horse to buck and for himself to ride well. He then started to ease down into the chute, into the saddle and onto the horse.
With his left hand, he gripped the single rope coming from the horse’s halter. It was enough to balance him, but not enough to control the horse. He held his right arm in the air.
Turco leaned back against the saddle. His feet in the stirrups were pointed toward the horse’s front shoulders.
He nodded his head, the gate swung open and the horse started to buck.
For eight seconds, Turco moved his feet in a spurring motion from the horse’s front shoulders to the back keeping the rhythm.
The buzzer sounded. His hand snapped down to get a hold on the saddle. He jumped off the bronc, planting both hands in the dirt, immediately tearing a tendon in his tricep.
Before injuring his arm, Turco had torn his groin, which also required surgery. Just as he recovered, a bronc lost its footing and fell with Turco on board, breaking his leg. It required two plates and 10 screws. Turco said he learned the hard way to let his body take a break from rodeo and heal.
“When I was riding hurt, I was like, ‘I don’t want to get on this sucker,’” he said. “This is the last thing I want to do right now.”
Turco is currently a graduate student at UM, and has been riding saddle broncs since high school. His parents, who grew up in Denver, moved out of the city to Franktown, Colorado; and established a small farm with horses, turkeys and chickens.
Growing up with his parents pushing a western lifestyle, Turco wanted to be a cowboy.
The summer before his freshman year in high school, Turco’s mother put him into the La Veta Rodeo Bible Camp. Since all he knew was how to ride horses, he focused on saddle bronc riding.
He then joined a high school rodeo team in a town near Franktown. He competed twice at the national level and was the Colorado State Champion his senior year.
Turco went on to compete at the college level when he went to Clarendon College in Texas on a scholarship for rodeo. After graduating with an associate degree in science, Turco came to the University of Montana in 2017.
At UM, he got a bachelor’s degree in parks and recreation. He is now working toward a graduate
degree in film and video. He hopes to make it to the National Finals Rodeo and someday buy some land.
“I’d like to raise some horses,” Turco said. “Not so much cows.”
Kory Mytty, a veteran in the rodeo industry, has been coaching Turco for the last three years. He said Turco’s expectations are higher than his own, but they worked together to decide if Turco should sit out a rodeo due to his arm injury. Turco held off surgery until December, after the 2020 fall season ended.
Once he got the surgery, Turco wore his brace wrapped in tape for Montana State University’s college rodeo on April 11. He couldn’t fit his
arm through the fence, making it hard to put his saddle on the broncs. Despite wearing the cast, he won a belt buckle for the best average score from all his rides during the rodeo.
Turco often travels with UM rodeo team members Rachel Cutler, who team ropes and goat ties, and Alexis Rose, who barrel races. Cutler said sometimes they listen to music or do homework, but Turco tends to just sleep.
“He pretty much naps the whole time, I swear,” Cutler said.
The three of them faced a seven hour drive down to Miles City for a two-day college rodeo starting on April 18.
“It’s a long drive,” Turco said. “But it’s just one rodeo, and it’s an indoor arena. The horses are Burch’s stock. They’re good horses, so it’ll just be fun.”
Turco fell off his first horse, but ended up third in the short round by the end of the rodeo Saturday evening.
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