The 1980 PRCA All-Around Champion, Paul Tierney, was raised on a ranch working from seven in the morning to seven in the evening raising cattle, sheep and hogs with his father and three brothers. When seven in the evening hit, the boys ate supper in a hurry so that they could rope until dark.
In high school, Tierney rode bareback horses and saddle broncs on top of steer wrestling and roping calves. He became a State Champion Calf Roper and realized how special being a rodeo athlete was before he went on to college where he won the region’s All-Around title all four years.
During this middle of his college career, Tierney would end up settling a deal with Clark Brown by working for him. It was working for Brown that Tierney attributes his success.
“He let me come to work and it was the very best thing I ever did in my life. He just opened his whole operation to me. We made calf horses, bull dogged on Wednesdays and that’s probably the one reason I became a World Champion, is because I went to work for that man,” Tierney said.