story by Lily Weinacht
AJRA tie-down and team roper Will Eddleman is entering his third season in the association, and he’s adding steer wrestling to the lineup for the first time this year. The 17-year-old from Santa Anna, Texas, hopes steer wrestling will give him a competitive edge in the all around, where he’s currently sitting fourth. He’ll jump his first steer at an AJRA rodeo in March, but he’s already entered the event in several THSRA rodeos and the Texas Circuit Finals Youth Rodeo. His favorite event, however, is team roping, competing in a three-way combo with Mason Rust and Kutter Johnson. Will ropes both ends, but prefers heeling. “I like to try to go fast,” he explains. “It gets pretty fast in the team roping, and I’m getting good enough that I can go fast now. At our very first (AJRA) rodeo this season in Stephenville, Mason and I were 4.75 and won it. That was pretty cool.”
Will is the third generation of his family to rope, and he looks up to his dad, Don Eddleman, and grandpa Ronald Eddleman. “They’re the main people who got me going, and who I want to be like and look up to. All of my high school rodeos are in Graham, which is where my grandpa lives, so he comes to them. My dad is a rodeo coach at Cisco College, and also trips steers in the PRCA.” Will often goes to the college to practice with his dad’s rodeo team, and ropes with Mason Rust and another friend, Whit Kitchens. “We have about 50 head of roping steers and 30 head of calves, and I probably have 13 to 14 horses I can do several events on, so a day of practicing is an all-day event at my house. We have two guys that work for us, Jose Olguin and Luis Olguin, that help out with feeding and cleaning stalls, and it’s a huge blessing to have them.”
All four of the horses Will rides were born and raised at the Eddelman’s ranch. Will ropes calves on his black gelding, Obie, and heels on a sorrel mare named June Bug. He heads on his mom’s bay gelding, Mo, and steer wrestles off of Vanilla, a red roan. “Kodi Jang is an Australian in Snyder, Texas, who’s a professional bulldogger, and he trained my bulldogging horse,” says Will. “We trained all our others. When you train your own, it’s a great feeling.” He’s also an avid hunter, and when rodeo season is slow, Will enjoys hunting white-tail deer and doves with family friend Kent James, or hog hunting.
A junior, Will started homeschooling when he was a freshman. “I like history a lot, and science — I like learning about the old country. I’m terrible at math,” he jokes, “but as I’ve gotten older and gone to ropings and jackpots, I’ve had to learn to add things up and know the payout, so that’s helped me more than anything.” When he was going to public school, Will played football, basketball, and tennis, but these days he’s happy to focus on roping. His parents travel with him to his rodeos — his mom, Pam Eddleman, videos his runs on her iPad — while Will’s longtime friend and honorary brother, Kevin Sanderson, follows his rodeo career through Facebook and Instagram.
“My drive is just the want to get better all the time. There’s nothing better than getting better all the time,” says Will. “When you go somewhere and you’re successful, it makes you want to keep going. This year, I want to try to win the all around at the AJRA. I’ve never done that before.”