Saddle up.

Senior Blaine Miller signed with Murray State on a full ride athletic scholarship for Murray State’s rodeo squad.

Miller or more widely known as “Cowboy Blaine” breaks the traditional athletic signing at East, as he is the first student to sign with a college on a full ride scholarship for roping. At a young age, Miller started to figure out roping was the sport he wanted to pursue. Along with roping in college, keeping up to par with school work plays a huge part in Miller’s future.

When people hear that someone is signing to a college on an athletic scholarship, the average person thinks of sports such as soccer, baseball, football, basketball, etc… In Miller’s case none of these are what he is signing for. Bullitt East High School has never encountered a student signing for roping in college, not even rodeo as a whole. “Not a whole bunch of people that I’m around rodeo, but the people that I rodeo with mostly have a scholarship like I do,” said Miller.

Miller started to rope when he was little when his father got him into the sport. “At first I started roping on a dummy and moved up to roping in competitions for money my freshman year of high school,” said Miller.

Along with every athletic scholarship comes putting in some major work to keep grades up while competing. “The toughest part is going to be keeping school work my top priority on top of taking care of my horses, roping, and traveling to rodeos,” said Miller.

Miller has high aspirations after his college and rodeo career. Unless he becomes good enough to become a roper on a professional level, staying on track with his grades and veterinary medicine courses is very important. “My future plans are to own a vet practice for small and large animals with multiple vets working for me,” said Miller.