World champ helped Smith learn ropes

Thursday, Dec. 2, 1999 | 3:45 a.m.

PRCA

Mike Smith

World titles: 1998 World Champion Steer Wrestler

Hometown: Baton Rouge, La.

Date of birth: Dec. 12, 1965

Height/weight: 6-1, 265 pounds

1998 earnings: $161,862

1998 NFR earnings: $75,250

Joined PRCA: 1988

NFR qualifications: 10 (1988-95, '98-'99)

The 1998 PRCA World Champion Steer Wrestler, Mike Smith, remembers how it was back in 1982.

He was a big kid from the city, just 17 years old, and determined to be a steer wrestler. But he didn't know how to ride a horse, much less dress like a cowboy. The guy who took Smith home to get him acquainted with the game was Steve Duhon, four years away from becoming professional rodeo's first world champion from Louisiana.

"I had on a pair of size 12 double E dingo boots and when I climbed in the truck, Steve kind of laughed at me," recalls Smith, "and I can understand why now."

Duhon introduced him to his dad, Billy, who bulldogged steers in his younger days, and the pain began almost immediately.

"I drove over there two times a week and for six months I don't think I ever caught one off a horse and threw one down," recalls Smith, "and we'd work 15 to 20 a night. I was bruised and battered.

"Mr. Duhon was very patient, he never raised his voice to me. But finally he said 'Son, maybe you ought to find something else to do. You got a chance to play college football. I'd hate to see you get hurt.'

"I said, 'Mr. Duhon, if you don't mind, I'd like to do this.' And he said 'Son, if you want to do this I'm going to teach you. But it's going to take some blood, sweat and tears before you get it, all three are going to come out.' "

Those were the first steps up Mike Smith's personal mountain and they took about three years to cover. Then there was three years of college football at McNeese State before the politics of the game became so overwhelming by 1988 they sent Smith back to the rodeo arena and a professional career as a bulldogger.

Again, he tackled his mountain and finally, after trekking across a series of hills and valleys, Smith reached the peak in 1998 at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas where his determination paid off. Mike Smith is a world champion.

"The feeling was unreal," said Smith, shortly after being presented with his gold buckle in the ballroom of Caesars Palace. "Some of it was relief, some of it like 'Is this really happening to me?'

"I'd been so close many times. The monkey that climbed on my back in 1988 had turned into a full-grown gorilla 11 years later."

At the 1998 NFR, Smith downed 10 steers in 44.3 seconds, just a second off the record. He won two rounds and placed in three others.

He set an NFR event earnings record of $75,250 and established a new high in seasonal steer wrestling income of $161,862.

The 32-year-old, well-mannered giant of 260 pounds, clinched the world championship with a patient run of 4.6 seconds in the tenth and final round of the '98 NFR for a fourth-place tie on a steer no competitor had been able to place on.

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