12 hours Ago By Dylan McNeill
The beginning stages of College of the Redwoods rodeo team has taken place, with a pair of recruits verbally committing to join the Corsairs for their debut team next season. CR is planning to start competing in the 2025-26 school season; both CR and Cal Poly Humboldt announced earlier this year that they’d be creating a competitive rodeo program. The rodeo season takes place in the fall and the spring, with no events typically occurring during the winter.
The two verbal recruits are Casey Huston and Vivian Arntz, Arntz is a barrel racer from Ukiah and Huston is a steer wrestler from Lake County. Both verbally committed to the Corsairs earlier this month after a campus visit. “They get to be a part of history, the first year we’re ever going to have of CR rodeo team,” O’Day said.
“Because our community is so agriculture-motivated with an agriculture influence, I think we’re well-received. So many of their friends are already in rodeo within the area, so they see that this is something that all their friends come to and would last for a long time.” O’Day is hoping for as big a roster as possible for the Corsairs, but for events they’ll choose participants to count for the team score for each of the six men’s events and four women’s events.
O’Day is eyeing six men and six women as a good starting place for the roster. “We’re very excited to get this program started,” Gianna O’Day said, who head coaches the CR rodeo program alongside her husband, Kelly. “So far, everything has been really positive.
” The O’Days have yet to do too much student outreach to find members of their team but word about the program has spread and students have reached out to them, seeking more information about the team. “Once you meet those students, you get that excitement from them. They’re new and they’re about to start their adult life pretty much,” O’Day said.
“It provides me with so much hope, inspiration and energy from their energy.” The O’Days heard rumors of the Corsairs beginning a rodeo program but was reached out to by Jerry Goodrow, a CR faculty member, gauging their interest in coaching the program. Gianna O’Day has done rodeo training for individual athletes with both her and her husband having tons of firsthand rodeo experience.
Kelly O’Day also has experience as a coach, being a part of the coaching staff for the Ferndale football team, where he also teaches at the school. “We have an understanding of how many students are actually already doing this at a high school level and that there’s such a need for it,” O’Day said. “So many students leave but there’s also students that don’t have the opportunity to go as far as some of these other college rodeo schools so having a college rodeo program at a school that they can go to, within three hours of their hometown, can really make a difference whether or not they choose to go to higher education.
” Currently there are eight schools with rodeo around the region, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Cuesta College, Allen Hancock College, Bakersfield College, Fresno State, Coalinga College, Feather River College and University of Nevada, Las Vegas with the two Humboldt County schools set to join them in 2025. Dylan McNeill can be reached at 707-441-0526..
