RONAN — Over three years ago, on March 26, Zanen Pitts caught his first calf. Since then, he hasn’t been able to stop.

“I got hooked on it,” Pitts said. “It’s addicting.”

While his family has been raising quality rodeo horses through childhood, Pitts first took the path of basketball, as his dad had been a basketball coach and he showed incredible talent while playing for the Ronan Chiefs basketball team in the mid-2000s.

“It was awesome,” Pitts said of his experience playing basketball. “We had a really good team, we were ranked in the top five in state for quite a while.”

Pitts got an opportunity to play for Montana-Western and redshirted his freshman year. He then went on a two-year mission for his LDS faith, and returned to play another season of basketball at Western.

“It was then that I figured out what direction I wanted to go in life,” Pitts said.

That direction was rodeo, namely calf roping.

In May of 2009, Pitts decided to enter the competitive world of college rodeo for the University of Montana-Western. At first, he said he experienced some beginner’s luck but then soon realized how much work went into the sport.

“It ended up being a lot harder than I thought it was,” Pitts said. “I had a lot of support from my family and friends and I was able to spend all of fall working on the sport. It was crazy how it showed. It’s one of the easiest things to pick up — if you practice.”

Pitts earned his equine business degree from the University of Montana-Western, while also competing on the Bulldogs Rodeo team for two years. After that, he was accepted into the welding program at the University of Montana and is now a member of the Grizzly rodeo team.

The Big Sky rodeo season has five rodeos in the spring and five in the fall and Pitts had to balance that with his welding program, which requires classroom time between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. every weekday. Pitts also has to work four hours of rodeo practice in a day and has a family as well.

“It’s not that difficult because everything supports everything else, but it’s challenging,” Pitts said.

His hard work is starting to pay off. He’s currently ranked second in the Big Sky region in tie-down roping and is sixth in the nation. He’s looking to make the College National Finals next June in Casper, Wyo.

“Right now a couple of us competitors have separated from the rest,” Pitts said. “But there are still 12 ropers that on any given day can bump you out of your spot.”

Pitts added that some years, college rodeo has a strong field of competitors and some years it doesn’t.

“The college scene right now is pretty healthy,” he said.

Pitts also has goals for the future. He wants to go pro.

“I want to win the world,” he said.

While Pitts said that he doesn’t feel he’s quite ready for the pro circuit yet, he’s definitely working for that. He also said he would like to remain in the Mission Valley with his wife Kendra and train calf horses to keep the family business going.

“I would love to have 20-30 calf rope horses,” he said.

He’d also like to give back to the rodeo community and said he’d like to see a junior rodeo circuit in the valley.

And after seeing what Pitts has done in just three short years, it’s quite apparent that anything Pitts sets his mind to, he can certainly accomplish it.