Rodeo tough: Hot Springs' McAllister sets sights on rodeo career

It usually is, according to Hot Springs area resident and recent high school graduate Jack McAllister, an “adrenaline rush.”

For starters, you are sitting in the saddle of a thousand pounds or more of horse, waiting for a judge to drop the “go” flag as a spirited calf explodes out of a nearby pen.

Your job is to catch up with the calf, toss a rope around it’s neck while the horse is at full gallop, jump off the horse in the middle of the lightning quick action, grab the calf and flip it onto it’s back while tying three of its four legs together at the hooves as the horse keeps the calf under control.

Oh yeah, and often if you are to win a calf-roping tie-down event, you have to do all of that in mere seconds.

“It can be a real adrenaline rush when the calf is released and the horse crosses the (starting) line,” McAllister said. “I try to be in the pen area before my ride to study other ropers and the cattle to see how things are going for that day”.

McAllister, a 2022 Hot Springs High graduate, was a standout football and basketball player during his years with the Savage Heat. He was quarterback of the school’s highly successful six-man football team and was a hard-nosed guard/small forward on the basketball team who often led the team in scoring and rebounding.

Having grown up on a Hot Springs area ranch and been surrounded by calf roping relatives, McAllister’s path in the sporting world was pretty much set from the beginning.

“My dad roped all the time,” he said. “I started roping off his calf horse pretty early on. Dad and his friends were all involved in roping and it just came naturally to me”.

And although he excelled on the football field and basketball court, McAllister knew his future would be shaped by rodeo.

“Calf roping is actually like other sports,” he said. “There are just different things to get ready for and a different approach mentally. The adrenaline rush is the same in some ways and different in others”.

Since graduating McAllister has worked several ranch-related jobs and is currently back in the Hot Springs area working on the family ranch.

Often described in sports articles as “Rodeo tough” Jack McAllister, he was widely respected by opposing football and basketball coaches for his toughness.

“McAllister”, St. Regis basketball coach said after a game against Hot Springs two years ago, “is a tough guy to play against. He is really quick, has a nose for the ball and the toughness to control the ball”.

The "T" word, as in tough, stands out when it comes to describing rodeo.

And, McAllister said, it is what often differentiates rodeo from other sports.

“With other sports, conditioning plays a major role,” he said. “With rodeo, its not like you go run laps as part of training and preparing. I think toughness is a good term to describe what it takes to be good in rodeo”.

During the recent Homesteader Days Rodeo in Hot Springs, the arena announcer at one point, after a young rider was tossed to the ground and nearly stomped on by a steer, described the cowboys and cowgirls as “tough as $2 jerky and frozen taffy”.

“Toughness is required and conditioning is usually from the kind of work most cowboys and cowgirls do on ranches.”

Calf roping has three sub-events, including break-away roping, tie-down roping and team roping.

McAllister said he prefers tie-down roping, where the cowboy leaves the saddle and attempts to secure the calf in a race against the clock, He also competes in team-roping, often pairing with his cousin Trapper McAllister in that event during which the athletes attempt to rope a steer by its horns and two hind feet to bring it to a halt.

His younger brother Nick, a junior-to-be at Hot Springs this year and the guy who took over the quarterback position from Jack after he graduated, is also an up and coming rodeo guy.

Progressing up the ladder that is professional rodeo, in pursuit of cash winnings that grow with the level of competition, requires a lot of time in the saddle, he said.

“We try to go to a lot of rodeos each year,” McAllister said. “This past week we were at home in Hot Springs, before that we were in Conrad and tonight (this past Friday) we will be heading to Gardner. In fact, we are in the process of packing up the trailer and loading our gear”.

Included in the preparations are transporting and taking care of his roping horse.

“There is a lot involved in getting ready for an event, we load up a lot of stuff and put a lot of miles on the truck and trailer. I want to be able to rodeo as long as I can and go as far with it as I can”.

Currently McAllister is a member of the National Rodeo Association and competes mostly in local rodeos. Future plans call for becoming part of the Montana Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, and one day joining the National Rodeo Cowboys Association on his way up the rungs of a very competitive ladder.

And if this storied life isn’t enough, McAllister has also ventured into the world of country music, along with his uncle Darin King.

“I don’t know how good I might be at the singing thing”, he said. “But it is something I like to do”.

If toughness helps in the world of country music McAllister will no doubt do well.