Arena Tracks: Looking for a Partner

Team Roping is, at its core, a curious event with a couple cowboys counting on one another to do the best they can.  The heeler needs a header that can catch and handle cattle and the header needs a heeler that can catch two feet.  Neither of those SOUND that difficult, but when you factor in the five separate brains at work, things get western and emotions can run high. I like to say that a pick/draw team roping is a lot like a junior high dance.  Folks shuffle around, nervously asking partners if they’d like to rope, only to be rebuffed and sent away broken-hearted.  There’s always a few break ups, a possible fist fight and for sure, someone ends up in the bathroom crying by the end of the night.

Such was the case with Doug Arnew. 

If you follow team roping on Facebook, you might have been privy to the dust up that Doug caused when he posted in the Team Roping Etc group, that he was looking for a heeler.  Doug included his stats and asked any heeler numbered a 4+ or under to contact him if they wanted to partner and win some ropings.  Let’s be frank, I’m paraphrasing and even Doug will admit that he could have chosen better words, but his intent was simple: he needed a heeler.  The post, as the youngsters like to say, went viral with some 980+ comments and a whole slew of shares and “likes”.  Comments were made, videos were shared and the whole thing devolved into the aforementioned junior high dance.  To be honest, what started as a fun, voyeuristic, “grab the popcorn” moment started to feel a little mean.

However, a few days later, there was Doug Arnew with some self-deprecating posts, hanging in there in spite of the kerfuffle that had held the Facebook audience captive.  I admired that resilience and wanted to get to know the guy under the wheels of the proverbial Facebook bus.  Turns out, Doug, like most of us, has a story that is at once unexpected and somewhat explanatory of his actions.

Doug Arnew grew up in northern California near the San Francisco Bay area in a town called Livermore.  Livermore sits in a little valley in the coastal range that separates the San Joaquin Valley from the Bay area.  Growing up, the Arnew family lived in a cabin built in 1880.  It had no running water or electricity and the bathroom consisted of an outhouse.  Water was piped down the mountain from a sulfur spring and pooled in a trough, where they would dip a bucket to bring into the home. The cabin had four fireplaces for heat and Doug and his siblings would study by kerosene lanterns at night. During the summer vacations from school, they would ride their horses all over the 360 acres and down to Lake Del Vale, where one summer Doug saved a young boy from drowning. During the winter months when it would snow, Doug and his brother would pull old weather worn boards off of the fence and take them up to the pass to ride the boards down the slopes before anyone knew of snowboarding.

The Arnews were invested in the western culture and the family showed horses, both English and Western. Livermore had an equine facility set into the hills with an upper and lower arena.  During a horse show in the upper arena, Doug, teenaged and bored to tears, glanced down the hill to see a youth rodeo.  There he saw a young boy bouncing across the arena on a steer, casted arm in the air, a smile on his face.  Doug decided he was done with the horse show set.  Doug was going to be a cowboy.

Stanley Arnew was a saddle maker and built a lot of the show saddles that were adorned with silver and buck stitching. Doug was determined to rodeo, so he started stamping belts and stitching headstalls to earn money for a gear bag, cowboy stuff to put in it and to pay his entry fees.

Doug took to the rodeo road entering and winning in bull riding.  Starting college at Hartnell College, he felt on top of the world, until he was pulled underneath it.  During a bull riding at legend Gary Laffew’s place, he broke six ribs and lost his spleen earning himself an eight day ICU stay and months of rehabilitation.  He dropped out of college to heal up and assess his options.

College in the rearview mirror, Doug decided the Air Force was a decent option for another adrenaline fix.  Two and half years later, Doug came home trained as a plumber and ready to learn a little more about the saddle and silverwork his father had mastered.  Soon he was building his own buckles and jewelry while rodeoing in the California Cowboys Pro Rodeo Association, where he soon was the State Champion Bull Rider.  Doug was married, but working full time all week then chasing the rodeo bug on the weekend put enough stress on that relationship to end it.  Doug decided at this crossroad in his life to load up and move to Texas.  The PBR was blossoming out there and a prominent buckle designer offered him a job engraving and creating artwork on buckles and jewelry.  Doug loaded what he could and aimed his truck towards Bandera, Texas.

Shortly after arriving in Texas, the buckle designer made the decision to outsource his buckles to Mexico and Doug, along with the rest of the company’s Texas-based artisans, was out of a job.  With no real contacts in Texas, Doug was reduced to homelessness, living out of the back of his pick-up before moving into the attic of a guy he met at a rodeo – an attic with no windows, air conditioning or lights.  This was Doug’s introduction to fire ants, waking up in the middle of the night in total darkness with his whole body on fire.

Once his plumbing credentials were up to date, Doug had no trouble finding work.  He also continued to build some buckles, getting the call to create the artwork for the Brent Thurman Memorial Bull Riding.  Shortly thereafter, a broken ankle at a bull riding closed the chute gate on that end of the arena for Doug Arnew.  He decided it was time to make a living and went back to plumbing full time.

Doug had long wanted to rope and even took lessons from Leo Camarillo as a kid.  But horses are expensive and the Arnew family had other more pressing expenses.  Now, Doug had the means and the time to pursue roping since his bull riding career had ended. He tackled team roping as he’d tackled everything in his life – with focus and a plan.

Doug is not a team roper that shows up 5 minutes before the roping only to take two “hot laps” to warm up his horse before backing in the box.  He has done his background work, buying and trading his way to a nice horse and 15 acres near Mineral Wells, Texas, a hotbed of western culture and all things “cowboy”.  That said, the Cowboy Capital of the World can be a tough place to break into the established groups and when his current heeler decided to pursue other avenues, Doug went where one goes to find new partners: Facebook – the Tinder of Team Ropers.

A social media attack can seem overwhelming, even when you close your computer and walk away.  Doug spent the Sunday night after his post tossing and turning in his bed, unable to sleep.  But the sun still rose Monday morning and Doug decided that after all the things he’d been through, this Facebook business wasn’t worth another thought.  Then the messages started rolling in, offering him encouragement, places to rope, partners and lessons.  In fact, when I spoke with him, he was loading up to go practice at a new arena.  Like Mona Schlagel used to say, “There’s not anything so bad that something good doesn’t come of it.”

Doug realizes he’s not perfect, but he’s willing to work hard and is serious about that. Right now, he’s back home, working on his technique, watching videos and roping with folks that can make him better.  What else would he do?  Throw his rope in the burn barrel, pop a beer and settle down to watch Days of Our Lives?  Not Doug Arnew.  He’s come too far to let a little online trolling make him stop chasing his dreams.  You gotta appreciate that.