Tuf enuff for Cowboy Militia
Relentless drive to be the best? Check. Sheer resistance to intimidation? Check.
Cowboy Militia's first sponsored competitor personifies the brand like no other cowboy. Our logo's proudly worn by Tuf Cooper, the wide-eyed 18-year-old who's torn up professional tie-down roping faster than any rookie since Joe Beaver.
In just his first year as a pro, Tuf wasn't supposed to shine brighter than his eight-time Hall-of-Fame world champion father Roy Cooper, or his defending world champion uncle Stran Smith, or his defending all-around world champion brother-in-law Trevor Brazile. In fact, those are some hefty shadows to ride through and they might scare even the most focused campaigner. But Tuf doesn't even notice. In a sport where most guys never even make the upper echelons, he goes to stomping fast-time records and racking up championships in a way only comparable to his famous kin.
Named for his grandfather, Tuffy Cooper, one of the West's truest, grittiest and handiest old-time cowboys, Tuf first put his own name in lights when he won the national junior high all-around championship in 2005. He added another national all-around and tie-down roping championship a year later at the International Youth Finals Rodeo, and spent 2007 gearing up to become famous.
Last year, Tuf shrugged off the heavy expectations on his teenaged shoulders by making veterans twice his age look silly; in turns beating the pants off guys like Fred Whitfield and Cody Ohl.
"I grew up watching all those guys," he says. "God gave me the ability and the strength to get over that fear of roping against the top guys in the world. I just got over it, and that's something you've got to get over every day."
He claimed the PRCA's 2008 Overall Rookie of the Year award, realized every young rodeo cowboy's dream of making the Wrangler NFR, and then took it to the big dogs again in Las Vegas.
Tuf topped off third in the average and fourth in the world at the NFR with a crowd-frenzying, crazy-fast 6.7-second run on a sold-out Friday night that fans will remember forever. He not only banked a cool $172,000, but was easily chosen Fans' Favorite Cowboy. He's followed that up in 2009 with a reserve championship in Denver and a Texas Circuit championship against his event's superstars.
Tuf may barely have been driving for two years, but he's nothing if not driven. His dad remembers watching him rope "calf after calf in 105-degree heat" last summer, and his brothers, two-time NFR-qualifier Clint and collegiate champion Clif, have cut him no slack, roping tough against Tuf every day.
"Really, Tuf's deal is, he just wins," Stran Smith has said of his shining-star nephew. "He's just a winner. That's the name of his game."
And that's the name of our game.
