Franks ready for NFR redemption

By Ted Harbin, TwisTed Rodeo

At just 23 years of age, Cole Franks has accomplished a great deal in the world of rodeo.

Three seasons ago, he won the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association’s bareback riding and all-around championships while helping Clarendon College to the men’s team national title. He then became the Resistol Bareback Riding Rookie of the Year, advancing to the National Finals Rodeo for the first time. He finished third in the 2021 world standings. A year later, he was back in Las Vegas, where he finished fourth on the money list.

He returns to the NFR for the third time in four years this December with a lot of goals on his mind, but there’s one that sticks out.

“I want to be at the South Point after the first round,” Franks said, referring to the casino and resort that hosts the nightly Montana Silversmiths Go-Round Buckle Presentation. “I want to be at the buckle ceremony getting that buckle.”

That’s one of the things that has alluded him; he’s been close, but he has yet to stake his claim to a round win in Sin City. He’s competed 20, earned almost $300,000 in two trips the ProRodeo’s grand finale, but there are more things he wants to accomplish. Go-round winners not only earn a shiny new buckle and a bottle of Pendleton Whisky, they also collect the lion’s share of the nightly payout.

All those things add up, and when dollars are piled on top of one another, the ultimate goal is the world championship. That is earned by the contestants in each event who conclude the 10-day championship with the most money won through the season. There are 135 cowboys and cowgirls who will challenge for rodeo’s gold in Las Vegas, and only a handful will grab it.

For Franks, just making it back to the NFR is a case of redemption. He finished the regular season with $139,556, good enough for eighth in the bareback riding world standings – only the top 15 on the money list advance to the Nevada desert. This comes a year after earning nearly $110,000 and finishing 17th.

“This year has been a little bit about revenge,” said Franks, who still lives in Clarendon. “I almost feel like I’m going to my first NFR again. I’m a little amped up. I’m excited o be going back.”

He should be. He won close to $150,000 in each of his previous trips, so he understands the opportunities that sit before him over 10 December nights.

“I didn’t want to be sitting on the sidelines watching the finals again,” said Franks, the son of Darla and Bret Franks, the latter of whom qualified for the NFR three times in saddle bronc riding and is the rodeo coach at Clarendon College. “I want to be behind the chutes watching, getting ready to ride. I did a lot of stuff different this year to make it happen

“Not being there last year was the key to me being there this year. I was not going to miss out. I don’t want what happened last year to happen again, so you got to see a lot more fire in me, or at least I tried to have more fire.”

He made sure it showed by finding the pay window a lot. While he didn’t have a lot of victories, several of the titles he won came at big stops. He considers his biggest to have been at Salinas, California, where he won nearly $15,000. It was just the starting point to a mid-July week that paid him more than $22,000 and propelled him up the standings.

It was just part of a transition season for the young bareback rider. After kicking off his career with world champions Tim O’Connell and Jess Pope, Franks adjusted his traveling posse to 25-year-old Louisianan Waylon Bourgeois and 20-year-old Texas firecracker Rocker Steiner, a three-time NFR qualifier who leads the world standings heading into this year’s championship. The key ingredient for all is seeing a progression in their talents.

“I feel like my riding has changed quite a bit, even from this past winter until now,” said Franks, who credits a big part of his success to his sponsors, Cinch, Pete Carr Pro Rodeo, Western Legacy Co., 287 Ag, Eliason Trucking and KN Double Cone Ranch. “I feel like my riding always has to change. Every year, we’ve got these new guys coming in, so everybody’s changing.

“Everybody’s faster. I know for sure I was a lot more conservative at my first NFR, and now, I feel like I can flash it up a little bit better than I used to be able to do.”

That’s important. Bareback riding is judged on a 100-point scale, with half the score coming from the animal. If a cowboy can help the horse earn more points, then the overall score will be better. The difference between first and second in Las Vegas can be half a point, and but the pay contrast is thousands of dollars.

He sits in the middle of the pack in the standings, but there’s not much difference between him and Richmond Champion, the 15th-ranked bareback rider in the field. There is a big gap between Steiner, who has earned more than $233,000, and Franks. Once they all arrive in Las Vegas, though, all that is out the window. Franks can catch Steiner in less than four nights if everything goes his way.

“I’m a little more jittery going into this one, like I was when I went the first time,” Franks said. “That first year, I was just so excited to be there, and I really didn’t know what to expect.
“I was so nervous I don’t even remember the first round. I feel like once I get there and once everything starts going, it’ll kind of be back to how it was my second year.

“Of course, if you’re not nervous doing this, there’s something wrong with you, especially at the finals.”