story by Ruth Nicolaus
Don’t ask Cale Buss to choose which sport he loves the most, because there are two tied at the top of the list.
As a wrestler, he’s done very well in national competition, and as a member of the Nebraska Junior High School Rodeo Association, he loves to tie-down rope, chute dog, tie goats, team rope (as a heeler for his brother, Cort), and ribbon rope (as the roper for runner Carsyn McBride.)
The resident of Atkinson, Neb., has wrestled since third grade. In sixth grade, he won state and was part of the state dual team that placed second at nationals, held in Council Bluffs, Iowa. At nationals, held in the spring of 2019, he only lost one match, and that was his final match, which would have earned him an All-American title. It was the best a Nebraska team had ever placed. This spring, wrestling was canceled due to COVID, so Cale is hoping he can compete this coming spring.
For rodeo, he rides a sorrel named Rodney for all of his events. Rodney is a friendly horse with a big personality, he said, a horse that anybody could ride. Tie-down roping is his best event, he believes.
As an eighth grade student at West Holt Public School, he loves math class but dislikes world history. School lunches aren’t very good, but every other Monday beef raised and donated by local ranchers is served in the form of hamburgers, which Cale loves. When it’s tuna fish sandwich day, he always goes with option number two, mac and cheese.
He believes his two favorite sports have many similarities. Both require footwork and balance, which he applies to tie-down roping and chute dogging. Flanking the calf requires knees and legs in the right spot, and in chute dogging, “you have to have quick enough feet, to keep your feet in front of you. When you throw them, your feet have to be in the general spot of where they should be,” he said. And being in shape for one sport helps with the other.
Cale is starting a few colts around home and likes to mechanic. He’d like to put some time into his dad’s 1981 Chevy Scottsdale, a small block 350 with a four-speed. The body is rough, he said, “but the beauty’s on the inside.”
The best trip he’s taken was just a few months ago when the family transported travel trailers to Corpus Christi, Texas, as part of the Bless You, Inc. charity, which provides the trailers as a free place to live for those displaced by natural disasters. They saw a lot of the country in the seven-teen-and-a-half hour drive, he said.
When he grows up, Cale would like to ranch and be a mechanic.
He has an older brother, Jade, a younger brother, Cort, his team roping partner, who is thirteen, and twin siblings, sister Brett and brother Reid, who are ten.
He is the son of Jim and Sharlene Buss.
