Jesse Brown is the 2017 Resistol Rookie of the Year in steer wrestling, a two-time National Finals Rodeo qualifier and currently the No. 14 steer wrestler in the world. But before he hit the arena dirt, he was a Division I quarterback at Washington State University.
He grew up in Baker City, Oregon, a town of around 10,000 people and a 4A school that Brown says makes them not tiny, but not huge. His love of football began when he was in the fourth grade with flag football and it quickly turned to tackle in the fifth grade.
“From a smaller community, so they had a little group of guys there in that class he had, I think there were several really good athletes and in northeast Oregon you’d start hearing whispers of this group in Baker City that was coming up that was going to do some big things for them in sports,” said Blake Knowles, a five-time National Finals Rodeo steer wrestler.
Brown was a running back in middle school when he got to high school and his coaches told him he needed to get bigger to play. So Brown hit the gym and ate a lot.
“I remember a coach was telling me, this was actually in basketball, but he was saying ‘if you’re playing point guard at 140, you’re going to get posted up every time and we’re not going to be able to play you so you’ve got to get bigger’ so luckily I hit a growth spurt, got a little taller and put on some weight and that helped a lot,” Brown said.
He started at quarterback his junior year of high school and they made it to Baker City’s first state championship game. He came back his senior year and they won their first ever state title.
Promotion is everything, even in high school and looking back, Brown did not do everything he should have to actively have recruits looking for him. But Washington State got in touch with him and offered him a preferred walk on.
Brown eventually became the third-string quarterback at Washington State as a redshirt sophomore, but left the team after spring practice of that year. His final football moment he was throwing the game winning touchdown and two-point conversion at the spring game in Spokane in 2013.
“I kind of decided after that, that that was kind of a good note to go on. I didn’t see myself getting in any live action games and I just kind of was losing a little bit of passion and I thought I needed something else,” Brown said.
After walking away from football, Brown knew his athletic career was not over but he did not know that rodeo was where he would end up.
“It led me to rodeo in a weird way and I don’t think I’d be rodeoing if I wouldn’t have done that so I wouldn’t change nothing,” he said.
Brown’s father rodeoed with Butch Knowles and getting help from the Knowles family seemed like the easiest transition and although there was a slight age difference, Blake Knowles and Brown have gotten closer. When Knowles got a call from Brown one week out from Brown’s first college rodeo, Knowles knew that had work to do.
Brown is a now a top steer wrestler in the world and his career is just getting started.