Turning the Barrels WPCA Newsletter

Transcription

1 Turning the Barrels WPCA Newsletter VOLUME 1 ISSUE 9 AUGUST 2013 Hell Or High Water: The Calgary Stampede GMC Rangeland Derby Left: The 2013 Calgary Stampede GMC Rangeland Derby champion team, outrider Reo King (left), driver Jason Glass (centre) and outrider Chad Cosgrave. Photo by Jamie Tiessen Right: Jason Glass racing down the track at the Calgary Stampede. Story by Billy Melville T he 2013 GMC Rangeland Derby Championship is in the books, and Jason Glass, driving the Shaw GMC Chevrolet Buick outfit, along with outriders Chad Cosgrave and Reo King, emerged from the sudden-death championship final heat as the champions and $100,000 richer. This was the first Calgary Stampede GMC Rangeland Derby Championship for Glass, who completed a dream week and one of the most dominating performances in GMC Rangeland Derby history. In a star-studded, penalty-free championship final, Glass, from barrel 1, won the winnertake-all sudden-death final by just 16/100ths of a second over Kirk Sutherland, who placed second from barrel 3. Jerry Bremner placed third from barrel 2 and Rick Fraser finished fourth from barrel 4. On top of all of that excitement, the championship final produced the top three times on the night as well. Kirk Sutherland also received the Calgary Stampede s Safe Drive Award for the first time in his career for being the least penalized driver over the first nine nights of the Rangeland Derby. Chanse Vigen received the Orville Strandquist Award for Top Rookie Driver. Vigen won the award over Chance Bensmiller, Evan Salmond and Mitch Sutherland. (Continued on page 2)

2 Hell Or High Water, continued: The Calgary Stampede GMC Rangeland Derby (Continued from page 1) The Equine Outfit of Excellence was presented at the beginning of the evening. Tycoon, of Jason Glass s outfit, was named Champion Right Leader for the second consecutive year. Nickle, of Rick Fraser s outfit, was named Champion Left Leader. Woody, of John Walter s outfit, was named Champion Left Wheeler. Candy, of Chanse Vigen s outfit, was named Champion Right Wheeler. Allen, of Gary Gorst s outfit, and Pamjet, of Reg Johnstone s outfit, were named the Champion Outriding Horses. Codey McCurrach in the mud on Day 4. Above, left: Driver John Walters makes new fans. Above, centre: CBC s Scott Oake and the WPCA s Billy Melville. Above, right: Troy Dorchester borrows horseshoes from Rick Fraser. Below, left: Driver Chad Harden gives a barn tour to some wagon fans. Below, centre: Driver Gary Gorst gives a Wagons 101 tour. Below, right: Driver Chanse Vigen gives a breakout interview beside his wagon. Editor s note: Thank you to the Stampede employees and volunteers who worked so hard after the devastating floods in June to make the Stampede and chuckwagon races happen. You are all a tribute to the true western spirit. PAGE 2

3 Leadership Tales: Lessons Learned From The Half Mile Of Hell By Jimmi Lou Irvine Introduction by Ed Wittchen I have had the opportunity to work with Jimmi Lou Irvine on leadership skills for over a decade. I taught her in the Master of Arts in Leadership program at San Diego State University and Royal Roads University. Later, as her school superintendent, I had a firsthand seat to observe her leadership development as a principal in Northern Lights School Division. This past year I asked her to help me develop a session on leadership for Yellowknife Education. In particular, I asked her to develop the session around leadership theory and principles by applying it to how a chuckwagon team is developed. (Jimmi Lou is married to WPCA driver Doug Irvine.) When she presented it to the Yellowknife Education Leadership Academy, it was evident that we had found something that could be applied equally to education, business or wagon racing in terms of explaining how leadership works. The following article shares Jimmi Lou s thoughts on leadership as it applies to developing a successful wagon team. E arly this season I was anxious to travel to Saskatoon to join up with Doug and the rest of the Irvine chuckwagon team. After surviving a few days of rain, we were slowly packing up on Sunday to leave for Medicine Hat on Monday. Despite the rainout, there were a few sunny breaks that brought out some Saskatoon residents to check out the horses. Some showed up with their cameras and questions. After talking extensively about the horses, their diet and care, they asked about our human team. The conversation took an interesting turn. Imagine the following conversation on a wet afternoon in Saskatoon: Do you do this all day, every day? On this team, everyone helps hook on. I replied, No, actually I am a teacher and school administrator in northeastern Alberta. Their reply, in a somewhat shocked and curious manner, was So you actually have a degree and training? They were surprised and so was I. I certainly have faced preconceptions before, but I was truly seeing that they believed perhaps because the sport was so traditional that the chuckwagon people had not evolved with time. I continued to talk with them and further explain how much the two professions are closely related. What is the commonality between chuckwagon racing and school administration? Surprisingly, one of the most common elements is the philosophy of leadership. When one consciously looks, the best leadership understandings are tied to all aspects of life, whether they are in our personal relationships, work lives or, in this case, chuckwagon racing. To begin, one simple leadership practice to connect the two is teamwork. John Maxwell states that one is too small to achieve greatness. From the human perspective, for chuckwagon competition, you have three team members. The (Continued on page 4) VOLUME 1 ISSUE 9 PAGE 3

4 Leadership Tales, continued: Lessons Learned From The Half Mile Of Hell (Continued from page 3) driver, of course, who has four lines in his hands, one connecting to each horse; the lead outrider; and the outrider at the back of the wagon throwing in the mock stove. These outriders cannot actually make us go any faster, but they can slow us down incredibly. If the outriders don t do their jobs, or don t do it according to the rules, we receive penalties. Penalties come in the form of time, essentially knocking us out of contention for the day money or the fastest time of the night. Maxwell says, There are no Lone Ranger leaders. Doug cannot work in isolation. If he isn t communicating with his outriders, giving them the best horses that fit them or if he isn t hiring the best outriders, he will never achieve greatness, regardless of how fast he is and how well he performs as an individual. In regards to the equine athletes, our team consists of four chuckwagon horses, defined as either lead horses or wheel horses. The lead horses are the two at the front and their primary responsibility is to navigate the turns around the barrels. The wheel horses are the two closest to the wagon. Their main job is to pull the weight of the wagon and charge through the turns. We could hook any four horses together and they could all be superstars, but if they will not work together, time will be eaten up due to inefficiencies. Consider your team. Do you have members that would be classified as superstars, but could only work with a small, select group of individuals? How productive is this in the long run? An aspect of teamwork that relates to our equine athletes stems from another leadership guru, Jim A tour of the Irvine barn led by Jimmi Lou (left). Collins. In his book Good to Great, Collins discusses The Flywheel and the Doom Loop. Collins asks you to picture a huge heavy flywheel, a massive metal disk mounted horizontally on an axle, about 30 feet in diameter, 2 feet thick and weighing about 5,000 pounds. Your job is to get the flywheel rotating. To make a long story short, you push with great effort to get the flywheel moving and eventually the momentum continues to carry it forward without really having to work as hard anymore. Collins discusses the flywheel as needing to spend little energy trying to motivate or align people, because the momentum of the flywheel is infectious. On the other hand, the Doom Loop that Collins refers to is one where there is little build-up, no accumulated momentum. It s reactive without understanding and has disappointing results. (Continued on page 5) PAGE 4

5 Leadership Tales, continued: Lessons Learned From The Half Mile Of Hell (Continued from page 4) The fastest chuckwagon has a team of horses that act like the flywheel. It takes at least one of them to get the momentum started, but once they go, they go together, carrying the whole outfit forward. You can imagine if it was like the doom loop and we had different horses starting at different times or a wheel team starting before a lead team, we could have an impossible number of wrecks. If our team reacts without everyone understanding their jobs, we would have four horses essentially working against each other. To make the best turn, some horses need to duck and turn and others need to charge ahead. If Doug has to drive each horse separately it would take an incredible amount of time, therefore slowing down the run. Think about your team. Are they working from a reactive mode, not understanding? Is there any momentum for projects if you stop pushing on the flywheel? How can you get your team to work together and avoid the doom loop slowing you down, costing you penalties? Continuing on with Collins and teamwork, he talks about the right seat on the bus. This principle is pretty straightforward, causing us to reflect and determine if we have the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats or the wrong people on the bus. On Teamwork: John Maxwell states that one is too small to achieve greatness. Finally we put him up on lead, and nothing could keep up with him. His speed was incredibly evident. This was our case of needing to assign him to a new seat. It turns out this horse needed a different seat on the bus. Does this principle apply to your reality? Is there anyone that needs a new seat...or perhaps no seat at all? Douglas Reeves, in his book Finding Your Leadership Focus: What Matters Most for Student Results, discusses research that has proven three essential clusters of leadership that positively impact achievement. Reeves says that focus refers to leaders identifying and monitoring no more than six priority instructional initiatives that are linked to student needs. For us, we have two areas of focus: the Ponoka Stampede, which traditionally ends on July 1, and the Calgary Stampede, which runs for 10 days in the first part of July. In regards to achievement, ours is financial. The final race at Ponoka pays the winner $50,000. The final race in Calgary pays the winner $100,000 (and there s the prestige associated with that title too). We go to seven to nine other shows throughout the summer, but right now they do not pay as much as these two. So we gear our entire spring training, feeding and fitness programs around these two shows. We had one interesting horse last spring that kept disappointing us. He was a first-year horse. He had an incredible race form and won a tremendous amount of money on the track. Every time we hooked him to the wagon, though, we were disappointed. In general we start all of our new horses on the wheel, and every time we hooked him he wouldn t really run. What a disappointment! There is approximately a three-week window where we need everything to come together. Yes, we want to win as much as possible, but more importantly we are learning, growing and moving forward in anticipation of winning these two shows. Every time we use a horse or outrider, or change quantity and contents of feed, (Continued on page 6) VOLUME 1 ISSUE 9 PAGE 5

6 Leadership Tales, continued: Lessons Learned From The Half Mile Of Hell Doug Irvine in the B&R Eckel s wagon, bringing it all together in the heat of a race. (Continued from page 5) each of these decisions we make is centred around this peak time in July. We have kept our initiatives to two. I can confidently say in wagon racing we are not suffering from initiative fatigue...but what about in your line of work? Reeves discusses monitoring as regular systematic observation. For us, this has to be systematic observation of what our horses are doing to contribute to a winning team. This starts in the spring. Doug keeps a large spreadsheet graph where he tracks the spring training of each and every horse. From when he starts spring training at the end of March he knows exactly how far and fast he has gone with each horse. This helps us understand when their physical condition will peak, again aiming for that three-week period in July. spring, when for the first time our new horses have harnesses on them and they are hooked to the wagon. They have never been hooked before and it is important to observe and record exactly what happened. This will give us the data to determine whether they eventually work better on the left or right side, and then as a wheel horse or a lead horse. Probably the most important form of monitoring for us is video replays. Every morning, the preferred activity is to meet with other wagon friends for coffee. At first glance this seems like a bit of a waste of time. You can imagine the incredible responsibilities of having two dozen animals on the road, a family of five, a crew of three to five and all of the equipment to get us all down the road. Coffee time is a bit of luxury. In addition, he keeps a black book. All it has is horse stuff. Every time he hooks a horse, he records how they performed. This too starts in the However, when one realizes that coffee time involves watching each heat of the (Continued on page 7) PAGE 6

7 Leadership Tales, continued: Lessons Learned From The Half Mile Of Hell (Continued from page 6) previous night s races, it becomes an act of monitoring, as opposed to just coffee. Together they look at their own races and analyze each move, they look at their horses and horses belonging to others. They review in slow motion their barrel turns, over and over again, trying to establish where they could shave milliseconds off their run without incurring penalties. The list goes on and on. On Delegating: Under the belief that we needed to do everything ourselves, we were literally knee-deep in manure. Interestingly enough, Doug did not always make time for this, especially when we first started. Initially we had to do everything ourselves, never leaving any time for coffee. We needed to learn the value of reflection, monitoring and data analysis, and give ourselves permission to do this. We needed to learn which jobs could be left for others. Imagine in Calgary you have 20 stalls that horses have stood in all night and, well, filled the stall with youknow-what. Under the belief that we needed to do everything ourselves, we were literally knee-deep in manure. However, spending all our time shovelling didn t leave any time for coffee. We needed to reconsider. Was there someone who could shovel this for me? The lesson was don t sit there knee-deep in manure. You need to be able to step out of it to give yourself time to look, reflect and consider. I am not saying that from time to time you can t jump in and help out, but if this becomes the norm then we are handicapping the team. Think of examples where this is true in your business. What can you get someone else to shovel so you can do the important work of monitoring? Any successful organization or leader has to work intentionally to build leadership capacity and create a lasting legacy. In our business, we have to look at this from both an equine and human perspective. In regards to the horses, we need to subscribe to the belief that the best time to build capacity is when things are going well. We can t wait until we have a hole to fill. The best succession planners see those holes and groom replacements far before they are actually needed. With wagon racing, this means we are constantly contemplating when the right time is to work a new horse in. We don t want that horse to cost us, but at the same time, we need our new horses to be ready when it comes time for them to fill in. In other lines of work, this is just as important. When is the right time to challenge someone with a new position or to give them additional support? From the human perspective, we have had to build our people. Besides the driver, outriders have a significant role to play. As discussed earlier, outriders can cause a significant number of penalties but are a necessary part of the team. Like working in your new horses, a driver needs to consider starting new outriders. Understandably a rookie outrider is not proven and will take time to learn and grow. However, if a driver takes a chance on a new outrider, the payoff is in the loyalty that the outrider will show by outriding for your outfit before all others. The principles of teamwork, focus and leadership capacity are applicable to all facets of life, even if on the surface it may appear that they have little in common. Some days I pride myself on being efficient in applying these principles to both of the interesting positions I occupy, while other days I believe it to be intelligently lazy! Either way, success at either requires many of the same principles. VOLUME 1 ISSUE 9 PAGE 7

8 The Race Against Hunger Hits Ponoka Ross Knight (left photo) and Codey McCurrach and Adriane Salmond help bag groceries. T he Encana Race Against Hunger in Ponoka featured WPCA drivers, outriders knew who their new bagboys were and donations. It was evident that customers and officials taking the were pleased to meet them in an place of regular staff at off-track setting. Hamilton s IGA. Participants bagged groceries or took them to the customers vehicles while raising funds for the Ponoka Food Bank. It is pretty safe to advise the guys to keep their driver day jobs after watching them bag groceries. They definitely took the right career path. Rae Croteau, a hardworking bagboy. Just the same, they were quick learners. Customers warmed up to their friendly banter. More importantly, those customers also bought food bank coupons and made The good news is that in the four hours the team worked there nothing was broken and nobody put heavy things (like milk) on top of light things (like bread). Even better, the guys earned an invitation to come back next year. The best result of all is that when combined with other Encana efforts in Ponoka, over $20,000 was raised for the Ponoka Food Bank. What a great display of true community spirit! Left: Mark Sutherland and Chad Harden shared the good news that over $20,000 had been raised for the food bank in Ponoka. Right: Megan Steele and Tim Haroldson took part in the Race Against Hunger at Hamilton s IGA. PAGE 8

9 Cowboys With Hearts As Big As The Prairie Sky T he WPCA once again stepped up to the plate to help make a very special day for a group of youngsters in Ponoka. Every year, drivers and outriders join with Ponoka Stampede officials, competitors and royalty to provide a fun-filled morning of mock rodeo events. This year, participants also got to meet Heartland star Amber Marshall. The smiling faces of these kids and their parents is all the reward these tough cowboys need to give their time to this worthy cause. Thanks to all the drivers, wives and outriders who made this a success once again. It is one thing to attend a sponsors barbecue and hang out with the money guys. It is something very different and special to spend time with kids. Left: Dustin Gorst lends a hand to his new young friend. Right: Troy Flad, a big guy with a big heart. These guys do it regularly and don t get enough credit for it. If you have a special cause for kids at one of our tour stops, call the WPCA office. Maybe we can work together to do something fun for the kids. Scenes From Stops In Ponoka and Medicine Hat Clockwise from bottom left: Rick Fraser wraps a horse s leg in the barn in Ponoka; Chad and Jordie Fike hanging out at radio station CHAT 94.5 FM in Medicine Hat; Sue Fraser rides an outrider horse to the track on a sunny and clear day in Ponoka; Doug Thomson and Chad Flad signing autographs at the Medicine Hat Farmers Market. PAGE 9

10 Where Is He Now: Outrider Brent Woolsey W hen Tom Glass was inducted into the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame, the WPCA wanted to invite someone special from Tom s past as our guest. It turned out to be a fascinating evening as we got to listen to a multitude of stories from Tom s longtime friend Brent Woolsey. Longtime fans will recognize Brent as an outrider from the 1970s and 80s. He was an outrider until he was 34, then became a stuntman and later a stunt coordinator for film and television. When Brent was 14, he took a Greyhound bus from Melfort, Saskatchewan, to Ponoka to take part in boys steer riding. He had plans to work as a barn hand for old-time driver Slim Helmle. Brent didn t have any money and Slim wasn t due for a day or two, so he slept in the old barns on the Ponoka grounds. Tom Glass and Dallas Dorchester found him there the next morning and took him for something to eat. That started a relationship and they became best friends for life. Slim got there the next day and hired Brent, fired him and rehired him in short order. Brent says the next few years resembled a gypsy lifestyle but he was hooked on the wagon way of life. His next step was to become an outrider. Tom Sinclair and Smoky Wilson gave him his big chance. When they offered him $20 per ride, he was hooked. He liked the idea of a guaranteed ride for money rather than taking his chances in the rodeo. Brent says there are so many memorable moments to choose from in his outriding career. It wasn t really about championships it was about competing and sometimes winning with his friends. Brent in the old days (middle outrider in red shirt) and today. Joe King, Grant Preece, Ed Alstott and Wilf Desjarlais were involved in a massive wreck. This ultimately resulted in a major change to chuckwagon equipment. In those days, the stove rack was mounted outside the wagon box just off the ground. When Wilf cut in front of Ed, Ed s right leader stepped into the stove box, sending Wilf across the track where the other two drivers crashed into his rig. As a result of the accident, several horses had to be put down. A new safety rule was put in place as well. Ever since, the stove box has been inside the wagon. The second major wreck was in High River at the Battle of the Giants in Ward Willard and Dallas Dorchester got tangled up, and a crash followed. In those days, there were still four outriders per wagon. Several of the outriders had nowhere to go and piled into them. Several outriders suffered severe injuries, including broken legs, and couldn t ride after that. Billy Melville remembers that was the only time he ever saw his famous grandfather Orville Strandquist outride. At the age of 60, he came out of the stands and filled in as an outrider. Brent s worst experiences involved two catastrophic wrecks. One was in Calgary in Drivers In 1982, Brent started his second career (Continued on page 11) PAGE 10

11 Where Is He Now: Outrider Brent Woolsey, cont d (Continued from page 10) when Tom Glass and Brent worked in a movie called Draw. Tom was a double for Kirk Douglas and had to jump into a runaway wagon. That was the start. In the last 30 years, Brent has worked in over 200 movies and TV shows as a stuntman and stunt coordinator. Over the years, Brent has given several chuckwagon and rodeo riders a chance to be in the movies too. Tom Glass s 1983 winning team included Brent (second from left). Brent says that his favourite movie star to work with has been Brad Pitt. He also tells great stories about Owen Wilson, Steve Martin, Jon Voight, Sam Elliott and Richard Gere. When they made Convict Cowboy in 1995, they had a cast and crew wrap-up party. Jon Voight asked if it was okay to bring his teenage daughter along. That was the first time Brent met Angelina Jolie. One of his favourite movies to work on was Shanghai Noon, starring Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson. Brent was also involved with Lonesome Dove, The Assassination of Jesse James, Legends of the Fall, Romeo and Juliet and Happy Gilmore. Brent was also a stunt coordinator for the 2010 movie Inception starring Leo Dicaprio; he won the Taurus World Stunt Coordinator Award as the Best Stunt Coordinator for 2011 for that movie. He was also nominated for the Taurus Award for the Best Fight for Shanghai Noon in Brent says that perhaps his favourite movie from his career was Legends of the Fall, starring Brad Pitt. He describes Brad Pitt as a super nice guy. In the opening scene, Brad Pitt s character and his brother are riding toward enemy lines when there is a big explosion and the horse goes flying several feet through the air. The rider was stunt double Tom Glass. The horse was Brent s horse Reba, who was one of the most famous movie horses of all time. Chances are if you ve seen a spectacular fall or jump by a horse in a movie over the last 25 years, it was Reba. Only four cowboys/stuntmen ever rode her for these difficult stunts: Brent, Tom, Guy Bews and Greg Schlosser. A documentary about her adventures was made shortly before Brent had to put her down last year. Brent is currently working as the stunt coordinator for the third season of Hell on Wheels, a western series filmed just outside of Calgary. When asked about the dangers and injuries involved in both outriding and doing stunts, Brent replies the worst were his stunt injuries. He says the worst one was when he was working on Zorro with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Antonio Banderas. He hit his head on the wagon, splitting it open and rupturing his sinuses very painful. As Brent got older, he learned that you have to be smart sometimes and back away from a stunt that is too dangerous and find a better way. He says once he got married and had children, he changed his outlook on how far he was willing to go on a stunt. Brent sums up his life as having been a great time with perhaps the best years being when he played junior hockey for the Prince Albert Raiders. He still speaks very fondly of his time with coach Terry Simpson and teammates like the late Brad McCrimmon. Today, Brent and Tom Glass share a place in Arizona for part of the year. Brent also has a place west of Nanton for when he is home in Alberta. PAGE 11