CHEYENNE, WY – As Laramie County Community College junior Chance Derner is preparing for his first time competing at the College National Finals Rodeo, he isn’t expecting the environment to be anything that will take him off of his game.

After all, it really won’t be his first rodeo.

“I guess I wasn’t competing but I was there helping and hazing for Cauy,” Derner said of his 2021 experience as a freshman. “Just the crowd in the short round, the crowd was phenomenal. I mean they had it packed. I’m excited for that and just going and roping.”

Learning from watching has always been the way for Derner, whether that is rodeo or life, he studies people and how they go about their business.

“I always kind of like just sitting in a pickup at a gas station or something just people watching,” he said. “Just watching how people handle themselves and how they carry themselves and I think the same thing applies for rodeo. You see the guys that win all the time and you like to watch them and just see what their character is and how they act and what they do. You don’t even have to talk to them. Just watch them and you’ll learn way more just watching them than you would talking to them I think.”

When it came to rodeo, there were plenty of options to watch around him, even back to his time as a kid when he had multiple cousins who helped him to fall in love with rodeo.

“The majority of my cousins on my mom’s side, they’re all eight to ten years older than me and when I was little wandering around at jackpots, those guys were roping and I was always hanging around them,” he said. “I was like ‘those guys are roping, I want to rope’ so it was just one of those things you just kind of pick up as it goes on.”

In his family, there were plenty of examples going back on both sides of the family, with a pair of grandfathers who competed as professionals along with uncles who are still at it in the professional ranks.

Now it’s his turn to be the one people are watching as he gets set to take on college rodeo’s biggest stage in Casper at the CNFR.

“I’m excited as I guess one can be. It’s such a cool event. That’s why we go to those ten rodeos every year is to try to get there so I’m pretty pumped for it.”

Back track to 2021 when he was just a freshman taking it all in, Derner said he knows after that experience that the big lights of the Casper Events Center won’t be too big for him.

“I mean, I kinda already had my feet wet a little bit,” he said. “You know what to expect throughout the week.”

“I know if I go and do my job and my horse does good, which I hope and trust him that he does, I don’t see why there wouldn’t be any reason to be an eight, nine, ten (second run), you know?”

Derner isn’t just hoping to show up and have success either. He has been working on getting tuned up for the CNFR over the past few weeks with family friends in South Dakota and has been getting runs in with help from his family along with way, including a sister who is also preparing for one of the biggest weekends of her young career as she prepares for the South Dakota High School State Rodeo.

“I know whenever I go to rope there at the house, she’s always saddling a couple horses too and headed to go rope with me there and mom and dad, they run the shoot. It’s kinda fun to watch,” he added.

Unfortunately, the timing of both rodeos will make it hard for his family to come and watch in person, but Derner said he knows they will be watching and the support has been there from the start.

“My dad, he’s excited,” he said. “He actually let me take off the rest of the week of work off and I’m going to go rope in Gering, Nebraska for a couple days and get tuned up.”

At the end of the day, the Golden Eagle has seen enough action to know he can only control so much, and while winning a national title is at the top of his to do list, he is only looking at it one calf at a time.

“Tie the good ones and just get by the bad ones,” he said. “And that kind of goes in the same effect for every rodeo. You use the good ones for what they are and try to maximize your potential on them and then on the bad ones, you still just have to go out there and do your job.”

That same mindset of watching and waiting for his time has brought him to the precipice of the college rodeo world.

“It’s a great thing. It gives a guy some confidence to know that he can make it and it proves something to oneself that you can make it. Don’t think you can’t.”