Ep. 107 - The Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund with Special Guest Author Shanna Hatfield
We have two Katie’s on the start of this episode which is not only co-host Katie Schrock but field reporter Katie Ahola, a former historian and current history teach, is jumping on to join us with all of the information in regards to the Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund.
Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund
“I love the Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund because it highlights how intense rodeo, as a professional sport, is,” says Ahola. Our fans love rodeo but they don’t always know what is going on outside of the eight seconds in the arena and that’s what Justin Boots is thinking about. The JCCF is a great place to bring people in to teach them how much we love and appreciate our rodeo athletes.
“A hand up, not a hand out.”
In light of the issues happening in the NFL with extreme concussion issues, but the trembling of the hands regarding it. This is timely with rodeo, in the NFL and MLB they have checks and balances to keep people safe and rodeo doesn’t really have that outside of the Justin Sports Medicine Team. But the team doesn’t have the jurisdiction to stop the athletes from competing.
The founding Doctor of the JCCF was blown away as a former football athlete that had gone through a career ending injury, couldn’t fathom what was going on with these crazy rough stock riders beating themselves up for fun. That’s what started his rodeo career because he was so fascinated that he started volunteering his time. With how many football stars that have crossed over in the arena, it is fascinating to see the crossover on the medical side.
An orthopedic surgeon, he worked for the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas Mavericks at the time that he started volunteering with rodeo and that’s how it was born. We love seeing rodeo move the needle towards more professional and extreme.
“A hand up, not a hand out,” is the slogan and it says it well. They aren’t looking to straight fund athletes, they want them to be successful in their rehab and to come back to the sport of rodeo. It’s a totally non profit organization so Justin Boots underwrites all of their admin fees. One hundred percent of the funds goes to the cowboys, cowgirls and their families.
You don’t have to be in the PRCA or WRPA to receive JCCF funds. You just have to apply. It has to be a rodeo event but it can be amateur, high school, etc. but you don’t have to be a WPRA or PRCA member to apply. It shows Justin’s commitment to the entire sport.
We love that Dr. Tandy gives the sports medicine update, which can be grim around Rounds 7 and 10, but we love that it shows the dollars that are working rather than telling it. Just to reiterate, Justin Boots pays for all of the administrative fees for an entire staff to run that and see it as a part of who they are and what their mission is.
If you go to the Justin Sports Medicine page, they have how to workouts, stretches, and how to tape for injuries, how to find a doctor near you and more. It’s really cool because they are in it for the long term, they aren’t just in it to help rodeo athletes to get by, they want them to stay healthy.
Justin Boots
John Justin grew up in the industry and boot business around the rodeo athletes. It was really natural that he was having a conversation with a legend, Jim Shoulders, and Frank Scivetti. Jim Shoulders is the cowboy who changed the way that tie-down roping happened by getting off the off side. Typically, contestants would get off the left side and duck under the rope to tie the calf but he was too tall.
Jim is a legend and there is a reason he’s inducted into almost every Hall of Fame that exists for athletes. He’s won 16 world championships all around the arena, but he would ride bareback broncs to pay his entry fees. Jim did everything! You can imagine what his body was like from the toll of that exercise. He literally did the event that is the hardest on your body just to pay entry fees.
He won’t admit this in personal interviews, but it is believed that his high number of world championships was basically because of his high level of pain tolerance. He could physically out ride and out compete everyone. This is why he was such an important part of this conversation with John Justin because he was falling apart. He tried to ride through so many injuries but body damage! Three to four events at a time can do an impressive amount of damage to your body.
Jim Shoulders really is the inspiration behind the JCCF but John & Frank were the masterminds behind it. They saw Jim and they knew they had to do something about it and wanted to see what Justin as a foundation could do not just for their friend, but for their other friends. It was not only to save their hero, it was to save their future heroes.
Frank was John’s right hand man and was the director of sales. It’s the whole hero concept of preserving their hero and that Jim represented their brand and that they wanted to continue to lift him up.
John Justin took over in the 1950’s for the family business but had been working in the factory as young as six years old. Literally growing up in the business, working with clients, seeing his family working, working in production and in marketing - John was definitely no stranger to work and real experience. John IS the company.
Because Justin Brands is a family business, they have so many curated designs over the years that they have in their filing cabinets. It exemplifies the family business model that so many people don’t think of when they hear Justin Boots and hopefully they do after they listen to this podcast.
“Everyone who has made history has stuck their neck out for something.”
ProRodeo League of Women Luncheon
“I think the word ‘luncheon’ makes it sound so boring - like a tea party - but it’s not! It’s like a wild west function,” says Ahola. It includes any women within the PRCA industry can be there and be a part of the fashion show that is completed sponsored, it includes an auction, a silent auction, and then the actual luncheon that you can buy a table or a couple of seats to enjoy the show and comedy.
The trick ropers come, the bullfighters, the contestants, the kids, and more have all been a part of it, out of their element, doing their thing. Similar to the beef check-off versus the cattle industry in the western sphere of things it is a “rinse and repeat” moment. A full production, you go to the South Point which you have to buy beforehand because they will sell out, but you don’t have to be a famous special person to go. You can be just a person that wants to go support and be a part of it!
Interested in going to the ProRodeo League of Women Luncheon in 2023, please join us at a table and send us a message!
For any major event in your life, you can direct funds or gifts directly to the JCCF. Bareback rider Bill Tutor directed any wedding gifts to the JCCF because that $50 donation really does go a long way because 100% goes back. World Champion and Ellensburg Hall of Famer Bud Monroe, when he died, his family directed flowers and funds directly to JCCF. At the Benny Binion World Famous Bucking Horse Sale, Bloomer Trailers donated a trailer to the JCCF. Nobody in the rodeo industry is too big to help out.
Teton Ridge donated $50,000 in 2021 to the JCCF which is exciting because they make people in the western world nervous. We know this because you all have been direct messaging and blowing us up because they have taken over major sponsorship of so many aspects of the western lifestyle. They have also put together a huge impact in the cow horse world which is now a part of The American.
“Every time I open my AQHA Journal, the first thing we see is Teton Ridge,” says Ahola. “It’s also in my reined cow horse news as well. They are huge -absolutely huge! They are spreading their wings in the western industry. It is the most intense spreading of their roots in the western industry.”
“I was a little surprised when they said that they had donated $50,000 last year - not surprised in that they would do that, but because I know them from the cow horse and performance horse side of things, not the rodeo side,” says Ahola. They are popping up in every facet of western life.
One of our former podcast guests does work for them in marketing and communications with them - we reached out to them on LinkedIn to see if they would be on it.
Justin Sports Medicine Team
It’s not just coming down to how good is your rodeo, how good the stock is or how good the hospitality it is - it’s coming down to dry cleaning, sports medicine, take out meals, groceries, and more. It’s a whole new world of treating and catering your athletes and Justin Sports Medicine is a part of that.
The Justin Sports Medicine Team is the founding fathers and mothers of setting a professional industry standard for our athletes. “I am going to stand behind that and here’s why,” says Ahola. The general public view is that rodeo athletes are just pure entertainment. They see them in a cowboy hat, boots and spurs that jingle-jangle.
The Justin Sports Medicine team has an extremely high level of care. They won't hire someone straight out of college, you have to have twenty years of experience to be hired on the team. This is massage therapist, chiropractor, orthopedic surgeon, etc. You have to be legit.
They set the professional standard and every other area is trying to catch up with that. If you go to the Justin Sports Medicine team for an injury or help with rehab or a question or even therapy - they are professionals. They are there because they want to be there. They are not fresh from school and couldn’t find a job anywhere else.
They have mobile trailers that travel around and they have a great database which already shows what that injury status is and the care. These professionals know how to cater to you and the event that you are in and how to take care of the athletes bodies for longevity. The average age of contestants is starting to reflex them.
“If you have the chance to go visit Justin Boots or even talk to someone on the sports medicine team you should because they are a great representative of rodeo and the western lifestyle.”
Have different historical moments that you want to learn about in regards to rodeo and the western lifestyle? Shoot us a message on social media or email us at Katie.Schrock@ThatWesternLife.com.
Shanna Hatfield
Shanna Hatfield is from the pacific northwest and loves the western lifestyle, good books and the Pendleton Round-Up. We are excited to have her on the show to chat about her cowboy romance books that all tie in with the Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund this holiday season.
Growing up on a farm in eastern Oregon, Shanna’s family raised beef and dairy cattle, as well as hay and wheat. Shanna’s oldest brother was a buckaroo in the Great Basin area and would come home with the best stories of the most remote place in the lower 48. This is what led her to her love of the cowboy lifestyle and the wild west.
A four-day rodeo over the 4th of July, it was the one holiday that her entire family looked forward to every year and that’s what started the background. Even today, Shanna and her husband love to go to rodeos and to support rodeo athletes through the JCCF.
The buckaroo culture of the Great Basin is so unique and while we see it as a job description, we enjoyed seeing reactions of people from the UK asking questions about the lifestyle. The buckaroos are all great story tellers and it’s a treat when they put pen to paper to tell us about those stories.
“The first story I remember writing in school was about a raccoon because my brother had a pet raccoon at the time,” says Shanna with a laugh. From newspaper reporter to a marketer, Shanna was nudged by her husband to start writing romance novels to get back into the art of writing that she missed so much. It all started, in fact, when she read a book that she thought was terrible and said, “I could do better than this!” He challenged her to do so and she did!
After she wrote the book, she got 67 rejection letters back on publishing. Knowing she wanted to do something with it, Shanna reached out to a friend that had a neighbor who was an author that introduced her to self-publishing. “It has been an amazing journey and I love writing,” says Shanna who, in 2013, was able to quit her full time job to write full time.
Shanna takes us through self-publishing and her tips which include not being afraid to make mistakes and to not give up. Do your homework, figure out what works best for you in the genre that you want to write in, and figure out who your customer base is. “My biggest takeaway that has helped my career, is the individual connection with my readers,” says Shanna. Shanna loves to get feedback from them and even works with her Facebook Group directly to allow them to have a say in her writings.
“Without your readers you don’t have anything and they are truly why I write,” says Shanna. “I hope it brings something, whether it’s happiness or an hour of escape to the people that read my books.”
Every year from October 1st through Christmas Eve, a percentage of the proceeds from all of Shanna’s books gives back to the Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund. “Read a book, help a cowboy!”
Join Shanna’s Facebook Group HERE, follow her on Facebook HERE, and shop her books HERE.