story by Kyle Eustice
During Steven Gussert’s senior year at Coyle High School in Poteau, Okla., his bucking horse unexpectedly tossed him over a fence, then stepped on the right side of his back, severely injuring the young rider.
With four broken ribs, a punctured lung, and ruptured spleen and liver, the Haskell, Okla. resident was in the hospital for over a week. Four months later, however, he was back in the saddle and ready to go again.
His late father, Conrad, who Steven calls his “superhero,” taught him a lot about resilience. Although he passed away in 2007, Steven believes his spirit is with him everywhere he goes.
“In 2007, I had qualified for the IFR in Okla. and was supposed to leave on a Tuesday, but I got a call on Monday telling me my father had passed,” recalled Steven. “It was a rough week, but I still went to the finals. Looking back, he was an old school dad. He was tougher than I was. I think I inherited that from him.”
His thick skin prepared him for his lengthy rodeo career, which began at the age of 8 when he got on his first bucking horse. What happened next would make most kids give up, but true to Derek’s nature, he was undeterred.
“My dad owned a feedlot and once a month, they’d have a cook out to get everyone together,” said Steven. “Someone said, ‘Let’s throw a Gussert boy on a steer.’ They asked me if I wanted to ride one. They put a rope around him and put me up there, and I rode him pretty far. Next thing I know, I wanted to ride them all the time. One day, my dad came home and asked if wanted to do my first rodeo. He grabbed a ratty bareback riggen out of the saddle room and the only instruction he gave me was to try to lift my hand to my nose—sounded simple. About the fourth jump, the leather broke and I hit myself in the nose. I’ve been hooked ever since.”
It took him a couple of years to win his first saddle, but in 1982, he won the MRCA and again in 1983, 1984 and 1985. After that, he started riding bulls at 15 and qualified for his high school state finals. He continued his rodeo career throughout high school and into college at Southwest Oklahoma State, then got involved professionally. He’s competed in the International Finals Rodeo (IFR) nine times in the bareback riding category and is a six-time ARCA bareback championship, but retired in 2009.
“I had a rodeo company I started in 2005,” said Steven. “At that time, I had 80 bucking horses for rodeo stock. I was still riding and trying to put on rodeos, but I was stretching myself too thin, so I retried when I could and not when I had to.”
Called G-Money Rodeo, Steven’s company aims to produce rodeos with integrity and nothing more. Additionally, he’s also an ACRA director and is responsible for choosing the horses for the riders, bull fighting, and being a liaison for other ACRA members.
“The job of the director is to choose the best horses to appear at the ACRA Finals,” explained Steven. “Also, if any bareback riders in the ACRA have any complaints or concerns, I take them to the board. I speak for them at the meetings.”
At 45, he’s a single father to two boys, Garrett, 18, and Brody, 16. He’s worked for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation for the past 10 years and loves to fish, play video games with his boys, cook out, go to yard sales and auctions, and savor a nice Pendleton whiskey in his free time. Re-baptized on November 28, 2012, he lives in accordance with his life philosophy: “I can do all things though Christ who strengthens me,” something he’s clearly had all along.