Exclusive NFR, National Finals Steer Roping Club
Joe Green, Phil Lyne, and Shorty Garten are the only cowboys to make the WNFR in bull riding and compete at National Finals Steer Roping.
Cowboys qualifying for multiple events at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo is not uncommon.
At the 2020-2022 NFRs, Stetson Wright qualified for saddle bronc riding and bull riding and left as a world champion in bull riding in 2020 and saddle bronc riding a year ago.
Cowboys competing at the NFR in bull riding and qualifying for the National Finals Steer Roping is a much more exclusive group.
The club consists of Joe Green, ProRodeo Hall of Famer Phil Lyne, and Shorty Garten. The 2022 NFSR is Nov. 4-5 at the Kansas Star in Mulvane, Kan.
Green passed away, Feb. 12, 2007, at the age of 70. Green, a lifelong resident of Sulphur, Okla., joined the Rodeo Cowboys Association, a precursor to the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, in 1953.
Green competed in just bull riding in his early ProRodeo days and qualified for the first six National Finals Rodeos from 1959-64. He finished fourth in the world standings in 1959 and 1963.
“Try, try, try,” Green said about the key to his success in bull riding in his ProRodeo bio in Nov. 7, 1960.
After finishing 14th in the bull riding standings in 1964, Green qualified for the NFSR in 1965, placing 16th.
After his ProRodeo days were done, Green kept roping and won the Super Senior Steer Roping finals at the Lazy E. Arena in Guthrie, Okla., in 1997.
Lyne, who is 11 years younger than Green, did remember the Oklahoma cowboy competing.
“Joe started tripping (steer roping) in his later years and he was very talented as a bull rider and steer roper,” Lyne said. “I got along good with Joe, and he was a good guy.”
Steer roper J.P. Wickett, a 16-time qualifier for the NFSR in 1996, 2001-14, 2016, did have a fond memory of Green.
“I called him Mean Joe Green and he said, ‘son my name is Gentle Joe Green,” said Wickett, who is the steer roping representative on PRCA’s executive council. “He was a good guy. He gave me my first steer string.”
LYNE ADDS ONE FINAL LINE TO RESUME
Lyne, who was inducted in the inaugural class of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colo., was one of the few contestants to excel in every rodeo event, winning a combined five world titles in three different events.
He was the all-around world champion (1971-72); tie-down roping (1971-72) and steer roping (1990). Lyne also was the NFR average champion in tie-down roping (1971); bull riding (1972); and steer roping (1983, 1986).
“Bull riding was something I liked to do, and everything worked out good,” said Lyne, 75.
Lyne was a world champion tie-down roper, and he was good friends with steer ropers James Allen and his son, Guy and that led him to expand his repertoire.
“I started wanted to trip (steer rope) and I went to who I thought was the best and that was James and Guy, and started from there,” Lyne said.
James Allen qualified for the NFSR eight times – 1971-72, 1975-77, 1979, 1980 and 1983.
Guy Allen has qualified for the NFSR a PRCA-record 33 times – 1977-2008 and 2016 – and he’s won 18 steer world championships, a single-event PRCA record.
“When I got started in steer roping around 1974-75, I went to James and Guy and I wanted to do as good as I could,” Lyne said. “I just kept practicing, and practicing and man, it turned out the way it did. I started riding bulls real young and I liked to do it. I put concentration on trying to do the right things and not make mistakes.
“Every event to me has its basics and a lot of people don’t know the basics. If you make mistakes it is going to cost you. Everybody is going to make a mistake, but when you make the same mistake over and over again that’s not good. I enjoyed what I was doing, and it wasn’t like work. I liked to do what I was doing, and it was work in a way but the more you put into something, and you put it in the right way the more you get out of it.”
GARTEN GOES FROM BULLS TO NFSR
When Shorty Garten joined the PRCA in 1978, he had visions of qualifying for the NFR in bull riding.
Garten accomplished that goal in 1982. He finished 10th in the world standings with $42,330.
“It took everything I had to just up and down the road to ride bulls,” said Garten, 65. “It was pretty cool to qualify (for the NFR in bull riding) and if I had to do it again, I would do it the same way. That was something I worked really hard to do and when you accomplish something like that it is always a big deal.”
Garten was a versatile cowboy, but steer roping in the PRCA was the farthest thing from his mind.
“I think I have worked every event in ProRodeo except for bareback riding,” he said. “After I semi-retired from riding bulls we moved to Pawhuska, Okla., which is supposedly the steer roping capital of the world. I took a job for a natural gas company, and we moved to Pawhuska in 1988, and it was kind of a natural thing to do to start roping steers. I like to team rope (as a header) and I had some friends there who roped some steers, and they gave me some help and I started roping steers.”
Reaching the NFSR pinnacle was special for Garten. He placed 14th and 11th at the NFSR in 1994 and 2002.
“That was one of those things you never ever thought you would do,” Garten said. “When you put enough work into it, and you get it accomplished it is a pretty gratifying feat. Once you start roping steers, you’re hooked. It is hard to tell somebody who has never roped and tied steers down, but once you do that it is so much more fun than team roping. It is all on you and your horse. It’s a blast.”
Garten still competes on a limited steer roping schedule in the PRCA.
“Mostly now I train steer horses and go to steer ropings,” he said. “I don’t go (steer roping) as much now and the kids have gotten so much better and they tie them so fast, and I probably have no business trying to beat those kids, but I still go to some of the better rodeos, and I get along all right.
“I know being one of only three guys to qualify for the NFR in bull riding and the NFSR is pretty cool. Not much gets said about it really. It is really cool. Phil Lyne has always been my hero and I always considered him to be the last true all-around cowboy. He could work any event and was tough at all of them. To be in that group is pretty cool.”
Courtesy of PRCA