From Deseret News archives:
Hanging on: It's a rough ride for Navajo Nation
FORT DUCHESNE — This is the way Roman McCabe is saving himself.
Almost every weekend through the summer and fall McCabe and several brothers pile into a couple of cars and travel from the Navajo Nation to whatever contest is on the docket for the All Indian Rodeo Cowboy Association.
One weekend it takes eight hours from Tuba City, Ariz., to Fort Duchesne. Six brothers come along on this trip, crammed in with bronc-riding saddles and equipment.
McCabe, 22, is riding for his little brother on this blistering summer day. "My brother wanted me to ride, and he was a big influence on me," McCabe said. "He inspired all of us."
Jason McCabe was a bull rider. A good one. But the young man died in a car accident on the Navajo Nation in May. Seems like this is the way it is for young people on "the rez," McCabe says. "If you stay, something bad happens."
His family comes from Oljato, just over the border on the Utah side of the enormous Navajo Reservation, but McCabe spends as little time there as he can. With a population of 864, 23 percent of the working age population in Oljato is unemployed. The median house value in 2000 was $32,500. His grandparents are still there.
"If you stay on the reservation long enough, it's going to consume you. You get lost."
McCabe turned to sports in high school. Football, track, wrestling. Anything he could play, he did, just to stay out of trouble. He got through high school staying busy, then he attended Mesa Community College nearby in Arizona. This fall, he started at the Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. He wants to be an architect.
"I've already designed my future home," he says. "In fact, I've designed a few of them."
He does construction when he's not in classes and sends money to his mom on the reservation. She sells jewelry to the tourists who come in and out of Monument Valley.
He's got his lucky saddle, branded with a cloverleaf to represent his Irish last name, McCabe. A flute-playing Kokopelli figure is stamped on the saddle, too. The emblem is also the mascot of the wrestling organization McCabe started for youngsters back home on the reservation. He volunteers his time to younger native kids. He hosts a couple of tournaments each year and will host one in his brother's memory this fall.
"It's something I can give back," McCabe says. "Because sports are what got me off the reservation."
On this day, under the dusty skies, he's thinking rodeo.
"I want to be a world champion."
He's on his way. He draws a wily horse named Featherlite and the position as last rider in the saddle bronc riding competition.
His bronc gyrates and jumps, but McCabe hangs on. Six, seven, eight seconds later and he is the winner.
"That's what it's all about, McCabe says after he dusts off. "Hanging on."
E-mail: lucy@desnews.com
