Maddy Deerman decisively secured the Washington State Fair Rodeo victory Sept. 8, 2024, in Puyallup, pushing herself into the World Championship conversation with more than $100K won.
Coming into the event as the reigning champion, Deerman got to work in Playoff one—tying for the win in Round 2 with Jackie Crawford with a 2.4-second time.
From the semifinals onward, it was the Deerman show. She posted a 2.7-second time on a tricky calf to top the eight-man round, and had the benefit of watching her peers rope before her in the four-man round.
“Jackie [Crawford] and Taylor [Munsell] missed, and TiAda was a 4.0 [second run],” Deerman, 24, said. “I knew I could go faster than that with my calf, but if I safety up and take extra swings, I usually miss. I can’t back off.”
Wearing a lucky straw hat that had been retired since her 2023 Puyallup win, Deerman backed into the box on main mount “Whopper.”
“I really like set ups like Puyallup where you have to score a little bit, run out there and rope them in a mid-to-long 2 seconds run,” Deerman explained. “I also like being in rope off-type situations where fastest time wins, because I feel confident in my ability to reach and be fast if needed. My final calf was a goodie one I could go make a run on.”
And 2.9 seconds later, it was done. Deerman rounded up a total of $16,019 across the go-rounds and finals to bump her from No. 8 to No. 6 in the World Standings, pushing her into the $100K club and within striking distance of No. 1 Josie Conner.
“This win has showed me I have an opportunity at a World Championship,” Deerman said. “My goal this year was to make the Finals, but the further we go into the season, I’m seeing a World Title is possible. I knew I was pretty much in the [NFBR] going into Puyallup, so I was focused on climbing some places.”
What’s more, is that Deerman’s top four finish in Puyallup guarantees her spot in the Governor’s Cup in Sioux Falls, SD, on the last weekend of the regular season. In 2023, Sioux Falls Champion Shelby Boisjoli-Meged pocketed $25K—an amount that’s a total game changer when the World Standings are as packed as they are this year.
Deerman’s Puyallup context
Deerman’s Puyallup win is a welcome change following a two week dry spell out on the ProRodeo road. According to Deerman, the root cause of the issue was her swing mechanics.
“My fiancee Garrett [Jacobs] was my saving grace, because not many people know my roping style,” Deerman said. “He told me to work on changing the plane of my rope from being so [flat] to being tipped off to the side. My plane was flat, and my rope wouldn’t come around the nose. I was topknotting a lot and sometimes I would just catch the nose instead of catching the whole [head]. When I tipped it to the right—which is more of an older, team-roper style swing—it makes it easier to cover the whole head of the calf. I was tipping it about 35° up.”
Once she canted her swing off to the right, the runs just “came together.” Armed with her corrected swing and Whopper—who was out the entire month of July due to a bad vaccine reaction—Deerman is looking forward to Pendleton, Stephenville, Albuquerque, Amarillo, Mandan and finally, Sioux Falls.
She has another weight off her shoulders, too… no office job looming. Deerman has a Masters in Geosciences (i.e., oil field) and had been planning on taking a full-time job in August. It would see her work on site week-on-week-off style until she moved into the office, which would be a normal work week under fluorescent lights.
No 9-to-5 for Maddy Deerman
“I thought about [the job], and I didn’t want to be in Midland,” Deerman said. “I prayed so much about it, and I had this pit in my stomach when I thought about quitting what I love to go home and sit in an office. I knew I’d regret every minute of it. I want to rodeo, stay [on the trail] longer.”
Aside from her love of rodeo, Deerman admits that her current position in the World Standings is a rare opportunity. In 2023, she won the NFR Open, Puyallup and Turquoise Circuit Finals, but finished outside the Top 15. In 2024, she competed in a slew of winter ProRodeos, was one of the top earners over Cowboy Christmas and has stayed inside the Top 15.
It remains to be seen what Deerman can get done as she approaches the top handful of spots in the World Standings, but the New Mexico cowgirl is determined, and The Breakaway Roping Journal will be following the race closely in the weeks ahead.
