ProFile: Lindsay Davis

From the time Lindsay Davis entered her first rodeo astride a Shetland pony, she’s had college rodeo on her mind. Working through the ranks of junior and high school competition alongside her sisters, Jana and Kiley, the 23 year old from Malad, Idaho, achieved her goal of college rodeoing. She qualified for the CNFR in the breakaway roping her freshman year, and recently accepted the assistant rodeo coach position at Colorado Northwestern Community College (CNCC). But like many a trek down the rodeo trail, her journey isn’t without its share of detours – and surprises.
One of the greatest surprises – more so to her family than herself – was the opportunity for Lindsay to haze for several of the College of Southern Idaho’s steer wrestlers, from practice all the way to the CNFR. Her uncles, Kenny and Tom Holland, greatly influenced her interest in hazing when Lindsay was ten. They started an annual spring steer wrestling school in Montana, and when Lindsay’s dad drove a handful of steer wrestlers north for the school, Lindsay tagged along. “She was paying more attention than I thought, and when she got to college, one of her steer wrestling friends needed a hazer,” says her dad, Kelly Davis, a roper and steer wrestler himself who introduced Lindsay to rodeo. Lindsay hazed several steers for her friend and called home to ask about bringing back one of her dad’s hazing horses to school. Knowing the hazards of hazing, her mom, Mary Jo Davis, was far from being in favor of the idea. Lindsay’s determination found a way, however, and unbeknownst to her mom on a visit home, snuck the horse into the trailer with her dad’s help.
Having watched more steer wrestling than any TV show, Lindsay took to hazing naturally. By fall of 2015, her senior year, she was hazing for eight of the steer wrestlers, and hazed for several of them at the CNFR two years in a row. “I’ve chute dogged a few times, but never gotten off a horse. But if I could bulldog, I definitely would,” says Lindsay. “The guys will come ask me which are the stronger steers and how the last guy did on the one they drew. I pay attention, not just for them, but for myself so I know what moves the steers make and how to make the best haze. I was the only girl hazing in CSI, but there’s another girl in Rocky Mountain region who started doing it as well.”
Over the years, Lindsay has competed in nearly every girls event except barrel racing, and focused on breakaway roping, team roping, and goat tying in college. “I really enjoyed college rodeo – it was that step above everything else I’d done before, and I had to be more competitive. Not only are you riding and doing what you love, but you’re getting an education. Being a student athlete, there’s that drive to keep up your grades so you can rodeo and help your teammates and your coach.” She was also a talented softball player in high school, but chose to pursue a rodeo scholarship. “I told Lindsay that the sport of rodeo is where you go and help everybody,” says Kelly. “It’s not you against the next girl, it’s you against the stock you draw. Through that, she’s made good friends, and the coaches know her as a person who helps.”
Lindsay’s dedication to rodeo didn’t go unnoticed. Another surprise on the rodeo trail came when CNCC in Rangely, Colo., offered her the assistant rodeo coach position. “They’d had another girl coaching, and I told the head coach Jed Moore in passing that she had an awesome job,” Lindsay recalls. “I love coaching kids. A while later at a college rodeo, Jed asked me if I was serious about the job, and he offered it to me right there. It wasn’t in my plans, but it is now, and I’ll see where it takes me!” She starts her work with recruiting this July, and she’ll move to Rangely in August.
She’s also working to start her own business since graduating this spring with degrees in equine studies and business management. “I’m interested in chiropractic work and equine dentistry. Growing up, we’d take trailers full of horses to a guy who came through here specializing in those areas. People are always asking who they can call for those services, and that’s what gave me the idea for my business.”
While she’s also helping her family with ranching and farming this summer in southeast Idaho, Lindsay sets aside time for rodeoing with the RMPRA in both the team roping and breakaway. “I do both ends team roping, but I’d say I like breakaway a lot more,” she says. “I had a bad horse accident team roping right before my freshman year of college, so it took me a while to even want to team rope after that.” Lindsay doesn’t remember much of the accident, but her dad, who was watching, says she was roping a steer when her horse stepped into her curl and sent the pair tumbling head first. “She had a concussion, and she had a tough time for a year and a half being able to remember short term things,” says Kelly. “We went to Utah State University, which specializes in researching concussions and learned that Lindsay needed to teach her brain it could still learn new things. She started beading projects like belts, and working with her hands and creating patterns has really helped her mind heal itself.”
On the rodeo side, Lindsay missed her first regional college rodeo of the season, but she was released to compete shortly after and won the all-around in her first college rodeo, placing in both the breakaway and the team roping in Pocatello, Idaho, on her yellow mare, Piggy. “I probably wouldn’t still be team roping without the help of my friend Trasen Jones, and Cody DeMers, who was the assistant rodeo coach at CSI,” says Lindsay. “He really helped me get back into things mentally, and my dad helped me with the roping. Dad’s always been my go-to guy – I don’t know what I’d do without him. He and my mom are my biggest supporters, and I can always count on them being there.
“My biggest goal for the future is getting my business started up, and rodeo wise, I want to stay on top of my game and keep making the finals. I also want to get married someday and start a family and get them into rodeo. Rodeo is a family thing, and we’ve never let it die. I knew every summer I’d be living out of the truck and trailer. It’s part of my life, so I come back to it all the time.”