Chasing the ride: Justus Peterson’s path from the gridiron to the rodeo arena

Justus Peterson didn’t grow up dreaming of rodeo.

The Montana Technological University senior spent five years on the Oredigger football team before ever seriously considering stepping into the arena. Somewhere between practices, road trips, and one final year of eligibility, Peterson found something unexpected that changed the trajectory of his life.

“I just started practicing rodeo and fell in love with it,” Peterson said. “I really wanted to spend this last year trying to make the college finals.”

Now the Dillon native is balancing a full academic load, competing in track and field, and chasing a spot at the College National Finals Rodeo.

Peterson’s journey to Montana Tech began with football. Recruited to play quarterback, he later transitioned to free safety, spending five seasons with the program. When granted an additional year of eligibility during the COVID era, he used it not for football, but to pursue something new.

That “something new” quickly became a full commitment.

“I hadn’t rodeoed at all yet,” he said. “And then just two years ago, I was like, I need to do it.”

Today, Peterson competes in steer wrestling, one of rodeo’s most physically demanding events, requiring athletes to leap from a horse onto a running steer and wrestle it to the ground. It came with a steep learning curve.

“When I started, I was very scared,” Peterson said. “You’ve got to get over that hump when you see that a 600-pound steer with these big horns and you’ve got to jump off one live animal onto another live animal. You can get hurt.”

But that edge, the risk, the adrenaline, the competition, is exactly what drew him in.

“It’s that thrill, that level of competition that you’re missing when you’re done with other sports,” he said.

Unlike many of his competitors, Peterson doesn’t have the backing of a formal collegiate rodeo program. Montana Tech has one other student, Kellen Colliflower, who competes, leaving Peterson to navigate the sport largely on his own. Peterson’s built connections across the region, often training and traveling with students from the University of Montana Western, just down the road from his hometown.

“I get along very well with the Western kid. They come out to our place and practice,” Peterson said. “I even travel with them to most of the college rodeos.”

Peterson reflected on the hardest part of the process.

“The hardest part about being here at Montana Tech has been the transition from a team sport to an individual one,” Peterson said. “In football, I was surrounded by a large group of guys that I considered my brothers every day for 5 years with team lifts, structured schedules, and always having teammates in the locker room pushing and motivating each other. Now, being in an individual sport, everything is much more self-driven. My time is scheduled by myself, and when I’m in the weight room, I don’t have 60 guys around me yelling, competing, and pushing me to be better. It’s taught me that I have to create that same intensity and motivation on my own, which has been the biggest adjustment.”

The independent path hasn’t slowed him down. Peterson currently sits third in the Big Sky Region standings in steer wrestling, putting him within reach of qualifying for the College National Finals Rodeo in Casper, Wyoming.

To get there, he’ll need to finish among the top three competitors in the region, a goal that will be decided over a series of high-stakes rodeos this spring, including major events at Montana State University and the University of Montana.

Peterson spent the past year developing and competing on a standout 20-year-old horse named Tabasco, who helped him win an amateur finals title before being sidelined with arthritis. More recently, he’s been testing new horses on the road, hauling them to competitions across Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona.

“It’s like trying to pick the starting quarterback,” he said. “You’ve got to see how they react in pressure.”

Peterson’s training and travel schedule would be daunting for most students.

In addition to rodeo, he competes hurdles in track and field and is completing multiple degrees through Highlands College and Montana Tech. When he graduates, he’ll have completed programs in carpentry, welding, metal fabrication, and machining.

“It’s a juggling act,” he said. “But it’s really, truly fun. What else are you going to do? Sit on your phone or something?”

His professors and coaches have played a key role in making that balance possible. Track head coach Chuck Merrifield, in particular, has supported Peterson’s rodeo ambitions, encouraging him to compete whenever possible.

“He’s been so supportive,” Peterson said. “I’ve just been so lucky to have a track coach like that in my corner.”

Peterson said his parents, Jenny and Jesse, have also had a huge influence on his journey.

“My dad was a two-time college national champion steer wrestler and also a professional national circuit champion steer wrestler,” Peterson said. “My mom was a Hall of Fame volleyball player and coach at Montana Western, and she’s also the daughter of the 1961 world all-around champion cowboy, Benny Reynolds.

I truly have a lot to thank them for when it comes to my drive in athletics, and the mentorship I get from my dad has been outstanding. I definitely wouldn’t be anywhere close to where I am today without my parents.”

Looking ahead, Peterson plans to continue chasing rodeo professionally after graduation, splitting his time between Montana summers and the winter rodeo circuit in the southern U.S.

“I want to chase this dream as long as I’m still young and healthy,” he said.

Despite opportunities to transfer to schools with established rodeo programs, Peterson chose to stay at Montana Tech—a decision rooted in both loyalty and experience.

“There’s been plenty of opportunities, but I just love Montana Tech so much and love the city of Butte that I’d like to finish where I started,” he said.

He also sees potential for something bigger: a future where Montana Tech builds its own rodeo program.

“I think it would be phenomenal,” Peterson said. “Maybe 15, 20 years down the future, Montana Tech is a powerhouse in the Big Sky Region.”

For now, Peterson is focused on the road ahead, one rodeo at a time, one steer at a time, chasing a goal that didn’t exist for him just a few years ago.

“You only get so many years in college,” he said. “You should be busy, and it’s all been really fun.”