ODESSA, Texas — The Odessa College Bull Riding Team is riding with the team series champion Texas Rattlers Thursday night in the highly anticipated PBR Chevron Showdown.
"You're riding and hanging out with people that you look up to and you've watched on the big screen and win championships," Odessa College Wrangler Linden Raaen said. "It's really great to get around these fellows and learn a lot from them."
And despite currently being in West Texas, six of these Wranglers are from a completely different side of the world: Way down under.
"But back home gets pretty dry so it doesn't feel too far from home," Raaen said.
Rodeo isn’t as big in Australia as it is in the United States. That’s why these talented Aussie bull riders decided to move more than 9,000 miles --- or more than 14,000 kilometers --- away.
"A lot of Australians just really like to get over here and there's a lot more money and opportunity to be better," Raaen said.
It begs the question: out of all the schools in the United States, why Odessa College?
"[Coach] Tom Kelly does a good job here and he likes recruiting us Australians," Wrangler David Chidgey said.
"Odessa’s got one of the best rodeo programs, especially for roughstock riders," Raaen said. "Coach Tom Kelly, who really helps us mentally and gives us every opportunity to better ourselves, to practice and opportunities like this one."
And with bull riding being so tight knit in their home country, some of these Australians turned Odessans go way back in the Lucky Country.
"We've grown up together since we're nine-years-old, 10-years-old," Wrangler Colby Edgar said. "And traveling every weekend like, yeah, our parents would take us to the rodeos. It was just like going on a little holiday."
"And it's been really great to have some people that we've all grown up together and known each other for a long time," Raaen said. "So it's really special to have friends like that."
Having people who are sharing the same experience as you can turn a place, as foreign as Odessa was to these riders, a lot more manageable.
"It's like having a second family," Wrangler Jamie Underwood said.
"Like if I think if I come over here by myself, I'd probably lose a bit of my culture from Australia," Edgar said. "Like even just how the way I talk or anything like that. But since there's so many of us, it's easy to like get along with everyone."
And like Odessa College, the Texas Rattlers themselves have their share of Aussies.
"On the Texas Rattlers last year in the championship squad, we had one Australian out of our kind of eight to 10 core riders this year," Texas Rattler General Manager Chad Blankenship said. "In the offseason, we actually signed two additional Australians. So now I would say 30% of our roster is Australian, not by coincidence."
Being able to work with some other professional Australians, who are the best of the best, shows how far these Odessa College Wranglers can potentially go.
"There's a young fellow, Qynn Andersen," Raaen said. "I really love the way he rides and he's also Australian, so might be a bit of bias."
"Brady Fielder," Edgar said. "He's obviously Australian and he's on the Texas Rattlers and he's come from Australian PBR. [He's] come over here and he's gone a long way in the sport over here. So I looked up him about that."
"I think a few of the Australians are definitely going to follow the way they're going down that path," Underwood said.
And if you couldn’t get enough of these accents, there’s going to be even more mates on the Wranglers next year: doubling their six members to 12.
Showing that bull riding has become more global than it ever has. With Odessa College being right at the forefront.
"This is really just evidence of the global popularity and reach of bull riding and Western sports," Blankenship said.