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Bull riding pro gearing up for Fresno invite
IMG 7702 Randy Schaapman-2 copy
Sierra graduate Randy Schaapman competed for the Lamar Community College rodeo team and is now a professional bull rider. - photo by Photo by BRIAN GAUCK

Manteca resident Randy Schaapman is looking forward to Saturday’s Fresno Invitational of the Professional Bull Riders tour.
This one at the Save Mart Center will be the closest one to home for the 2008 graduate of Sierra High.
“You’ll see some of the best riders in the world,” Schaapman said on Tuesday of the 7 p.m. event in Fresno.
He recently competed in the Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show in Fort Worth, Tex.
Schaapman, who spent eight years on the amateur circuit, has been with the PBR for the last four years.
On April 1, he’s scheduled to compete in the Gonzales PBR in Texas.
For Schaapman, a PBR bull ride is an eight second contest consisting of strength, balance, endurance and effort, squaring off the world’s best bull riders against the world’s best bucking bulls.
Just to be on the tour and among the best has been a great honor, he said.
“Buy you have to earn your way in,” Schaapman added.
The clock starts when the bull’s shoulder or hip breaks the plane of the gate.
In order to score, the rider is required to ride the bull for eight seconds – each ride is worth up to 100 points (50 for the bull and 50 for the rider who successfully rides the bull for eight seconds).
Schaapman is in the Touring Pro Division.
He got hooked into riding at an early age. Schaapman, at the tender age of 4, first began riding sheep. As a teenager, his attention turned to rodeo bull riding. A graduate of Sierra High, he signed with Colorado-based Lamar Community College’s rodeo team in 2014.
His time with the PBR has allowed him to travel throughout the U.S.
“South Dakota, Nevada and Utah – I’m looking forward (to competing) in nearly every state on the tour,” Schaapman said.
For more information on the Fresno PBR, log on to www.savemart.centerfresno.com.