Published: July 06, 2008 11:25 pm      

Ride of a lifetime

North Carolina teen rising star on rodeo circuit

CORBIN BRANCH ROAD — Austin Stewart’s done the whole teenage thing. He played baseball, basketball and ran cross country in junior high, and got his driver’s license a few months back.

But nothing, not even the freedom of the open road, can match the thrill of rodeo.

“Driving is just another thing. I’d rather ride a horse than drive a truck,” Stewart, who took part in the calf roping, team roping and steer wrestling events at this weekend’s 4-T Arena Rodeo, said.

While Friday night marked his first foray at the massive Bridgeport-area track — “I came here last year and watched, but it ate me up,” Stewart joked — the 16-year-old rising star is hardly some rodeo rookie.

For the Stewart clan, which includes uncle Brad, his team roping partner and another International Pro Rodeo Association athlete, the sport has become a way of life.

It’s a life that preaches repetition as much as competition. Early mornings are devoted to tying calves and riding horses, while practice, often two to three hours at a time, takes up the bulk of most nights.

But the soft-spoken North Carolina native, who first hopped on a horse at 16 months, wouldn’t change a thing.

Home-schooled by his mother, he’ll never attend senior prom or high school graduation. Instead, Stewart prefers to talk about what he can do. He’s already a professional, with hopes of reaching nationals this December in Las Vegas. And while he can’t think of a favorite spot, he cherishes the places he has seen. This month alone, Stewart will make rodeo stops in West Virginia, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Tennessee and Alabama.

The work and travel, as uncle Brad can attest to, is a constant grind.

“When practice is over in high school baseball and football, you throw you stuff in a bag, go home and lay on the couch,” he said. “When you’re done here, you’ve still got animals to feed. Then you have to do it again the next morning.

“It’s not easy and it never stops.”

But the long, hard road has only fueled Stewart. After shooting through the junior and high school ranks — he was a two-time North Carolina calf roping champion — the teen is now among the circuit’s top young riders.

“(Austin) is very athletic. He has tons of ability,” Brad Stewart said. “Myself, I never had his ability. I had to work a lot harder at it than he does. But rodeo is a lot like golf. It’s such a mental sport. I think once he figures the mental part out, he’ll be awesome.”

Whatever the future holds, Austin Stewart has found his calling. And the ride has only just begun.

“I don’t worry about what I’ve missed,” he said. “This is want I wanna do for the rest of my life.”

E-mail Nick Cammuso at ncammuso@timeswv.com.