by Sylvia Gann Mahoney from College Rodeo from Show to Sport
The team to test the qualifying rule for teams and individuals in college rodeo in 1982 was a two-cowgirl team from New Mexico Junior College. Coaches have all kinds of strategies for winning. For Coach Sylvia Mahoney, it was recruiting the best since she did not have a background of rodeo competition. The names of Tami Noble of Yale, Oklahoma, and LaRae Higgins of Peoria, Arizona, showed up everywhere in the high school winner’s columns. Convincing cowgirls of their quality to try a little school like NMJC when major rodeo schools dangled scholarships was not easy. They came, they won, and between the two of them, Noble and Higgins qualified for the CNFR. However, to compete as a team at the finals, an NIRA rule stated that a team must have three cowgirls. Now, generally that would have been easy, but NMJC had a shortage of cowgirls. In fact, not another pair of boots on feminine feet could be found that was a bona fide student and cowgirl at NMJC.
One responsibility of the NIRA executive secretary-general manager was to interpret the rules. NMJC coach Gann Mahoney called NIRA executive secretary Tim Corfield, who gave a glimmer of hope to the cowgirls. As the NIRA rule stood then, the team needed an NMJC student with a 2.0 GPA who would be willing to compete in one event at the CNFR. Noble and Higgins headed for their roommate Lori Wafer, who competed in tennis for the college. Assuring her that having ridden a horse as a child at her grandfather’s place predisposed her to having a penchant for rodeo and convincing her that her grandchildren would love to hear the story some day, Wafer entered. Higgins had an old, slow barrel horse for Wafer to ride. At the CNFR, with the bravery of a woman on a mission, Wafer made it around the barrels. As Coach Gann Mahoney watched by the fence, one other coach said, “That horse must be sick the way he’s going around the barrels.” He did not know that he had just watched the most outstanding run of the rodeo.
Higgins’s 3.3 won the breakaway roping in the short round and was second to Southeastern Oklahoma State University’s Sabrina Pike in the average. Higgins sat firmly behind Pikc in second spot for the CNFR all-around, sharing second with Cheryl Overfelt of the University of Southern Colorado. Noble won the 1982 Rookie of the Year award. With all the excitement, Coach Gann Mahoney said, “I had no idea that our team was in second place when the final CNFR gate slammed. My team finished second to Betty Gayle Cooper Ratliff’s powerhouse SEOSU team. How exciting especially since Betty Gayle and I were friends and we both grew up in Lea County, New Mexico,”
It was no surprise that in the 1983 rule book, the new rule stated, “If a contestant has not competed in at least one regularly scheduled regional rodeo, that contestant will not be eligible to compete as a team member at the CNFR.”
Hired to teach English at New Mexico Junior College, Gann Mahoney found one of her duties was to serve as the rodeo coach.
