‘Money Mayfield’ in position to claim historic NFR all-around title

Which was rodeo. Which was roping.

“I’m a very competitive person, and that’s what drew me to rodeo,” Mayfield said. “Ever since I was little, I was roping. Always wanted to win. My dad always had this deal — first place got you $20. I liked other sports but wasn’t the best team player.

“With calf roping, I’m all by myself out there. That’s why I love it.”

He is just 23 and yet pointed toward potential greatness, already a PRCA world champion in tie-down roping from 2020. And now, as the annual National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas approaches, Mayfield has bigger dreams.

An all-around title.

He is leading the standings with an advantage of more than $34,000, chasing an all-around championship more wide open this season with the absence of Stetson Wright. The eight-time PRCA world champion who has captured the past five all-around titles shut himself down while recovering from hamstring surgery.

So it goes that a cowboy such as Mayfield can almost taste an all-around buckle.

“It would be awesome,” said Mayfield, who has competed in tie-down, steer roping and team roping. “I always looked up to those guys. It would be a great thing to have on my résumé. It’s not easy to balance two, three events. One is hard enough. Props to those guys who have done it. It’s very challenging.”

He is known as “Money Mayfield,” in part because of his favorite boxer, Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Shad’s father, Sylvester Mayfield, was the first Black cowboy to make the NFR in tie-down roping.

Sylvester moved from Memphis, Tennessee, to Clovis, New Mexico, with no real knowledge about horses. But he attended livestock auctions, learned about the sport and entered a life of rodeo. Helped his children — Shad’s sister, Shelby, also competes — find a spot in their hearts for it.

“I didn’t get to watch my dad rodeo too much when I came along,” Shad said. “But I heard a lot about what he accomplished. He was out there every day at practice, showing us how things are done, making us better.”

In fact, Shad became just the third Black world champion in pro rodeo. The others: Charles Sampson on bulls in 1982 and Fred Whitfield, a seven-time tie-down champion and the all-around winner, in 1999.

History tells us one in every four cowboys across the frontier in the late 1800s were Black. They roped and helped lead cattle drives.

So it goes that Mayfield doesn’t want such former times forgotten, that he wants to introduce rodeo to more and more African American youth and impart stories of old.

He wants them to know there is a place for them in the sport.

“It comes from a source of pride to be that guy for kids to say, ‘I want to be like him,’” Mayfield said. “There aren’t a lot of us out there, so that means a lot to me to be one of the faces they look up to.”

TV show helps

“Yellowstone” is a television drama that originally starred Kevin Costner as the patriarch of a powerful, complicated family. In it, he controls the largest ranch in the United States.

And a cowboy like Mayfield is happy the show has lasted so long.

It has, according to him, made cowboys seem cool again. Made them more popular across the country and world.

“I mean, the perception has been raised so much the last couple years,” Mayfield said. “People can see the traditions of being part of such a life now. I feel like kids have more of an opportunity than ever in the rodeo industry because of it, and that’s great to see. It’s what I’m trying to do — to make the next generation part of it.

“I don’t think people see everything that goes into rodeo. That’s why I love it so much. Cowboys are kind of the ‘in’ thing right now. The culture is huge and goes back way before football or most sports have been around. The traditions are forever real with cowboys, inside and outside of rodeo. There is so much history to it.”

The background to his rodeo discipline: Calf roping directly points to working cowboys, who have to catch and restrain calves for things like branding and medical treatment.

It is an event in which the cowboy rides his horse and throws a loop of rope around the calf’s neck, jumps off the horse and restrains the animal by tying three of its legs together in the shortest amount of time.

The best of the best will tie a calf in seven to eight seconds.

The world record is just under six.

And it’s a discipline in which Mayfield is among the best.

“It’s the most athletic event in rodeo where the best athletes succeed,” he said. “I feel like it’s the closest thing that brings me to other sports. I’m on the ground, moving my feet. It takes a lot of different moves to be a great tie-down roper. That’s the reason I picked it.”

He also tells you this — that the event is far more mental than physical. You need a large chunk of toughness above the shoulders to get through each run.

That it’s not like, say, football. You can make a bad pass and come back the next play. In tie-down, if you make a bad run, you have to drive another 10 to 15 hours to the next rodeo thinking about it.

“That part is challenging, for sure,” Mayfield said. “A lot of things aren’t under your control. What you draw on your calf, what your calf does. You can be doing your job and still not have the best of luck by drawing the wrong calf. Being able to overcome all those things and having a positive mindset is important, for sure.”

Father knows best

The winter would come, and the freezing temperatures with it, and the arthritis in Sylvester Mayfield’s hands would begin acting up again.

But one night, when it was colder than cold, his 12-year old son asked him to come outside.

“He had dug a hole in the ground and started a fire,” Sylvester said. “I had told him I couldn’t help him in that weather, so he figured out a way I could warm my hands and be out there with him.

“It didn’t matter if it was winter or 110 degrees, he was out there roping. I was going to do everything possible to get him where he wanted to go. I was hauling hay back then, and he had asthma so he couldn’t help. I would get home and he’d be tying a calf. He just wanted this real bad. He really wanted it.”

Father knew best, and Shad Mayfield knew it. So he leaned on Sylvester to teach him the ways of roping, of being better than the next guy. It worked. By the time Shad was 14, he was beating professionals.

The family couldn’t afford high-priced horses, so young Mayfield worked those it did have. And he was terrific at it.

“He’s real good with them,” Sylvester said. “Good with horses, good with animals. He’s such an athlete. That helped him when he didn’t have the best horses. Lots of guys (in rodeo) aren’t really cowboys. He’s a cowboy.”

Dad, however, wants him more focused when it comes time for the NFR this year.

“He needs to concentrate on Shad because I think this could be a really big year for him,” Sylvester said. “He started off real well. But now he needs to finish it. We’ll figure it out. He’ll win the all-around.”

And what about future generations? How proud is the father of the son when it comes to charting a path for others?

“He’s like myself — he’s a people person,” Sylvester said. “He loves kids, has a soft spot for them, likes to help them. He didn’t have anything given to him. He worked hard for all of this.”

All-time great’s advice

Fred Whitfield was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2004. He sees unlimited potential in Shad Mayfield. Sees a winner in every sense.

Whitfield was chatting with a reporter via telephone recently when Mayfield sent him a few videos of the calf he had drawn for that day’s rodeo. It’s the sort of relationship the two have, of an all-time great and one who wants to be one.

“My assistance is, ‘I’ve been where you’re trying to go,’ ” Whitfield said. “I don’t deserve any credit for anything the kid has done except for coming behind me.

“But here’s one thing (and) I’ll stand on this until the day I stop breathing: Who better to get information from than somebody who has done what you’re trying to accomplish? It’s pretty simple. If I’m going to have a house built, do I want the guy who has been building them for three or 40 years?”

So he lends advice when asked.

Whitfield says it’s vitally important Mayfield be an example for the African American community.

That when he started out, “only 2 percent or 3 percent” of competitors were Black.

“I was more loved than disliked, so I’m not going to fall on the status quo of today’s world,” said Whitfield, 57. “There are others along with Shad coming up now, and I’m glad for it. It’s very important. No doubt Shad is one of the faces (of rodeo) now. He’s the best roper in the world.”

Whitfield agrees this is true because of Mayfield’s athleticism, because he is so strong and quick at the same time. It’s why the roper is so ahead of the field right now. Why he’s dominating the sport.

And he has a massive fan in history’s best African American rodeo cowboy.

“I told Shad a long time ago that I was his best-kept secret,” Whitfield said. “He doesn’t ever have to mention my name because I’m validated. I don’t need any credit. My record speaks for itself.”

Dealing with injury

Shad Mayfield hasn’t been the healthiest of sorts this rodeo season, dealing with a torn labrum in each hip. Tends to really flare up when you’re tying those calves. But he has overcome such adversity. He has roped his way forward.

There is an all-around title to be won, the sort of gold buckle of which all rodeo cowboys dream of wearing.

There probably isn’t a cowboy at the NFR not nursing some sort of ailment.

It doesn’t appear as though Mayfield’s will slow his pursuit.

“I’m going to fight my way through it,” he said. “You make your profit at the end of the season at the NFR. It means everything to be there. Everyone has the same goal — compete your heart out for 10 nights at the best level you can. I’m not going to let anything slow me down.”

Little seems to. He is, by all accounts and records and opinions within the sport, headed toward greatness.

Has come a long way from those $20 bills for finishing first.

Contact Ed Graney at egraney@reviewjournal.com. Follow @edgraney on X.