Athletic Director, Steve Barlow, announced Monday that the CWC Rodeo athletes have the opportunity to participate in a documentary project developed by Best Production Company from Los Angeles, CA. Best’s Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Bartel, and Development Coordinator Laurie Costarides contacted rodeo coach Drew Schrock about the project earlier this month. The documentary TV series, titled “Rodeo is Life,” would follow the Central Wyoming College rodeo team and the coaches, faculty, and family who support the athletes.
“As one of the best rodeo teams in the country, the bar is set incredibly high for these athletes,” Bartel said. “But as the saying goes, ‘it takes a village,’ and Rodeo is Life is not only a show about the team members. The show is an uplifting and heartfelt story about community and the hard work, dedication, passion, family values, and traditions that make rodeo not just a sport but a way of life.”
A Best Production Company executive will initially interview athletes via video conference calls. Through these interviews, Best hopes to find individuals interested in participating in the next step in the process, filming a three to five-minute trailer called a sizzle reel. Next, Best Production Co. approaches interested networks such as Discovery, Netflix, HBO, or others, utilizing the sizzle reel to pitch the project and hopefully will sell the show. If the show sells, additional filming would take place later in the year.
“Our rodeo athletes are very dedicated,” Coach Drew Schrock said. “They work hard in the classroom, in practice before and after classes, and compete on the weekends. It is a way of life that takes an extreme amount of dedication and grit. I think it’s exciting that these folks want to show the world what their day-to-day life and values are all about.”
CWC rodeo student-athletes are presently competing in their spring season and preparing for the college national finals in June.
“We are excited to have the opportunity to share the stories of our athletes, families, and our communities about the unique life of rodeo,” President Tyndall said. “It is such a large part of our culture at CWC, in Wyoming, and our region. I feel like we need inspirational, hard-working stories like these to be told.”
