Gillette College Rodeo Team

A great article on a great GC Rodeo student athlete(now alumni!), Staheli Adams

Once a Pronghorn, always a Pronghorn: Staheli Adams finishes college rodeo career with seventh-place finish at CNFR Gillette College rodeo head coach Casey Rae Sellers has said repeatedly that the best recruiters for the Pronghorns rodeo team is its athletes.

Marvin Garrett is such an asset to this program and continues to shape the next generations of roughies in the best way

His mom forbade him from bull riding. So he picked the wildest event left on the list instead.
Born July 28, 1963 in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, Marvin Garrett told his fourth grade teacher he wanted to be a cowboy when he grew up. He started riding steers at 12. At 15 he wanted to move up to bulls — but his mother put her foot down and told him to pick a horse event instead. So Marvin chose the wildest one he could find. Ba****ck riding. The moment he climbed on his first one he forgot bull riding ever existed.
Rodeo nearly lost him to another sport entirely. A standout high school wrestler, he was all-state and All-American in 1982 and turned down wrestling scholarship offers from major programs to chase rodeo instead. The sport got its champion.
PRCA Rookie of the Year in 1984. Four World Championships — 1988, 1989, 1994 and 1995. Twelve National Finals Rodeo qualifications. A member of the United States rodeo team at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. They called him "Marvelous Marvin" — a nickname earned at the 1988 NFR that stuck with him for the rest of his career.
In 1998 a small plane he was riding in crashed in California. Nearly everyone aboard broke their backs. Marvin broke his back at the belt line and his right arm. He never stopped riding ba****ck horses through it all — coming back to qualify for the NFR again in 2000 after the accident that should have ended everything.
He narrowly missed a fifth World Championship in 1996, edged out on the very last ride of the NFR — by his own younger brother Mark.
Inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1998. Inducted into the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame. He later turned to coaching college rodeo athletes and built the Marvin Garrett C**t Challenge to help young cowboys get their start.
Four world titles. A survivor's story. A South Dakota legend who picked the wildest path and never looked back.
That is Marvin Garrett. 🤠🏆