Will Lummus, a 7-time Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (NFR) qualifier and cowboy with over $1.8 million in career earnings, is a force to be reckoned with in the world of steer wrestling. Lummus will compete in the steer wrestling December 5-14 at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nev.
Rodeo on SI had the great opportunity to chat with Will Lummus.
With a 2021 NFR Average title and two second-place finishes in the World Standings (2021 and 2022), Lummus has consistently proven himself as a top contender. As he heads into the 2025 NFR, ranked No. 1 in the world, his focus is firmly set on achieving that elusive gold buckle.
The 2025 PRCA regular season concluded on Sept. 30 with a few last-chance events scattered across the country on a Tuesday afternoon. For the first time in a career that started back in 2012, Will’s name was atop the standings as the regular-season leader.
“To me, the season leader is important,” Will said. “I feel like it’s looked over a lot of times, because it is the guy who was truly the best all year long, and all different aspects of rodeo.
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Since 2018, Will has strung together eight consecutive trips to the NFR. Last season, he placed second in both the world and the NFR average, after catching nine of the 10 steers he faced in a combined 43.2 seconds.
That momentum carried over into 2025, as Will won or co-championed nine events and used a late-season surge to overtake a handful of competitors for the top spot on the PRCA leaderboard.
Despite those narrow misses, Will isn’t changing his approach. If anything, the competition at the NFR is what gets him going.
“That’s where Tyler Waguespack and I feed off each other. If one of us is before the other one, and we throw one fast, we can talk a little smack walking out of the arena. It just pushes the other one to do great as well,” Will said. “In that building, it’s just easy to thrive off other people’s success.
Will jokes that earning the accolade might allow him to start contemplating retirement.
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“Ultimately, it’s the only thing I really haven’t won. There’s some regular-season rodeos that I haven’t won, but as far as big year-end stuff, now that I have the season leader, it would mean everything to get the gold buckle,” Will said. “But ultimately, I got in this game to make money, and it’s been fantastic for almost a decade now.
He understands how the body works and how to keep it healthy rodeoing. Then, he got in the truck with K.C. Jones from Decatur, Texas.
His journey to excellence was beginning and it was the start of his five consecutive NFR qualifications, one overall title in Las Vegas for having the fastest total time on 10 runs, and two reserve championships. In fact, he finished in the top five in the world for all but one of those years from 2018 to 2022. In 2019, he was 11th in the world.
“The most challenging thing across the board that we face is winning versus losing and learning how to get out of a slump or just move on,” Will said.
“The quicker you learn to forget about a run and move on and go to the next run the better.
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Throughout his career, Lummus has relied on several key horses. Here are some of the horses Will Lummus rode this year:
- "Ray" owned by Lummus
- Be Dun By Three (Three Dee Skyline x Silver Major Diamond) "Benz" owned by Clayton Hass
- Off The Fence (Stel Corona x Sis Hits) "Swamper" owned by Broom Tree Ranch LLC
Lummus started in the Southeastern Circuit on his horses, Ray and Zoom, the haze horse. He won the circuit on them last year, they've been awesome for him. He rode Benz (owned by Clayton Hass) through the winter and spring. He got hurt after Ogden and then I got on Swamper, owned by Jarrett and Winsten McGraw. I've been on him since.
For the NFR, Lummus will be on Swamper and Clayton will haze on Lucky, who hazed for them all year.
Lummus qualified for his second consecutive Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in 2019, placing in six rounds and winning Round Eight. In 2020, Lummus finally cracked the top 10 in the worldwide standings, earning a fifth place finish and qualifying once more for the Wrangler National Finals, winning Round Three and splitting the win in Round 10. He placed in three other rounds, finishing fourth in the NFR average with 52.3 seconds on 10 head.
The 2021 season brought a few career milestones for Lummus, as he finished second in the world standings and made his fourth appearance at the Wrangler National Finals. It was at the NFR where he won the average for the first time in his career, notching a time of 43.0 second on 10 head.
Lummus has continued to tear up the professional circuit this year, earning four victories. His most notable win came during the summer of 2022 in the world-famous Calgary Stampede in Alberta, Canada, where he turfed his steer in a speedy 3.6 seconds during a four-man championship round.
Prior to his emergence in the professional ranks, Lummus competed collegiately at East Mississippi from 2010-12 and UT Martin from 2012-14. His college career came with several honors as well, most notably helping UT Martin to a College National Finals Rodeo title in 2014.
Lummus holds an Associate of Arts in fine arts from EMCC, a Bachelor of Science in Health & Human Performance from UT Martin and a physical therapy assistant licensure from Wallace State Community College.
He’s won the Calgary Stampede, the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo and the average championship at the National Finals Rodeo, an event he has qualified for each of the past six seasons. He’s never won the Dodge City Roundup Rodeo.
“Back when I first started rodeoing with K.C. Jones, I did make the short round, and I’ve placed good in the average,” said Lummus, 32, of Byhalia, Mississippi. “I’ve placed in a round here, but that one time was the only time I’ve made the short round here. It’s usually hit or miss.
“Today I was just blessed to have to gentle steers and get by them. All timed-event contestants compete in two go-rounds, with the top 12 in each event qualifying for the championship round, which will conclude this year’s rodeo Sunday night. That’s where the champions will be crowned, and it’s a special night of rodeo.
“There’s just so many good guys,” said Lummus, ranked fifth in the world standings with $97,216. “Any of the top 75 guys in the world can beat you. Anytime you show up to a rodeo, if a guy draws a good steer, it doesn’t matter who he is or where he’s from, he can beat you.
He’s been close to touching that world championship, but it’s just escaped his grasp.
“Rodeo has been great for me,” said Lummus, who also serves as the rodeo coach at Northwest Mississippi Community College. “I’m right here toward the end of my career now, and it’s been awesome for me.
For the first time, he enters the Finals as the No. 1 ranked cowboy.
Lummus grabbed the No. 1 spot in the middle of August and held on to for the last 10+ weeks of the regular season. He enters the NFR No. 1 for the first time in his career after finishing as the Reserve World Champion three times in the last four years.
Lummus finished the season on a high note by finishing second in Puyallup, second at the Roughrider Cup, and second in a round at the Governor’s Cup. Those three runs alone paid him a combined $26,856 in September.
Leading the charge is Will Lummus, the PRCA’s fastest man on paper, topping the charts in average time and in runs of 4.5 and 4.0 seconds or faster. Few steer wrestlers have built a reputation for grit and consistency quite like Will Lummus.
Heading into this year’s Wrangler National Finals Rodeo ranked No. 1 in the world, Lummus has his sights set squarely on a gold buckle.
That balance-knowing when to push through and when to pause-is something many athletes struggle to master. But for Lummus, it’s all part of the discipline that’s kept him among the sport’s elite.
When asked what set this season apart, Lummus didn’t hesitate. “I’ve made a living backing off and going and winning second or fourth,” he says. “I got in this game to make money originally, but backing off has cost me a couple gold buckles.”
This year, he took a new approach.
That philosophy-do your job, trust the process, and don’t let fear dictate your decisions-has served him well this season. And it’s the same mindset he’s now passing along to his students.
When he’s not chasing world titles, Lummus is investing his time in the future of the sport as head rodeo coach at Northwest Mississippi Community College. It’s a role that allows him to share hard-won lessons while still feeding his own competitive drive.
“I really enjoy coaching,” Lummus shares. “I like giving back to the sport that’s been great to me and my family. It’s a great way for me to get back to the region that I college rodeoed in, that had a part in molding who I was.”
Balancing two demanding careers isn’t easy, but Lummus thrives on staying busy. “I’ve always been a workaholic, so I don’t sit well very long,” he laughs. “It drives my wife nuts when she wants to sit in the house on a Sunday and I just can’t do it. I always have something going on. That’s just who I am.”
For Lummus, success in the arena starts in the mind. “I feel like I can really mentally make you stronger and make you a better winner,” he says of his approach to coaching. “That’s what makes the winners great in our sport.”
“KC was one of the strongest mental game guys I’ve ever met,” Lummus reveals. “He taught me so much. Now I can go run a steer and it absolutely go horribly, and I can walk away like it never happened.”
“When you can get to that mental space where you can walk away like it never happened, it’s simple,” he explains. “You’ve got to be able clear your mind, go in there, and do your job. If it doesn’t go great, try again. That’s life.”
Lummus’s perspective on handling failure is refreshingly practical. “You’ve got to focus on the positive and work on the negatives,” he says. “So many people like to focus on the negatives and only work on what they’re doing wrong.
“My uncle always told me, when you go through a run-even if it was a bad run-you count your positives and your negatives. If your positives outweigh your negatives, you’re still winning,” Lummus recalls. “That’s what I’ve tried to do.”
Lummus is also realistic about the lifespan of a rodeo career and the need to plan for a future outside the sport.
He encourages his students to think the same way-not as a “backup plan,” but as part of building a full life.
“Everybody always talked about a backup plan,” he says. “I absolutely despised that word. It’s not a backup plan. It’s to make you self-sufficient, so when you move on further in life, you can do things for yourself.”
For Lummus, that perspective came from experience. After missing the NFR in 2017 by just $4,500, he came home and went to work. “I got a job making $20 an hour, and I learned how to do HVAC, electrical, framing-all of it,” he recalls. “When I learned how to do all that stuff, it opened me up. I do all of my own work now.”
Today, he encourages rodeo athletes to treat their careers like a business. “Rodeo’s getting to where you can invest well and actually make a living,” he says. “But you’ve got to treat it as a business. If you don’t invest well and you don’t treat it as a business, what are you going to do when you get done rodeoing?”