From Jay to the pros

A lot of people don’t end up with a job that they love.

Trying to succeed as a professional athlete has an even lower success rate.

Once making it to the pros, even fewer have a genuine opportunity to compete for a championship.

One of Jay County’s own has checked off all of those boxes at 18. 

After growing up with the sport, Tyler Manor has found success as a professional bull rider this year, even being selected to compete in the Professional Bull Riders World Finals in Fort Worth, Texas, in May.

Before he made it to the PBR, Manor was just a kid from Portland.

Manor started young when his grandfather, Joe McQuillan, and father, Adam Manor, got him his first bull at 3 years old and introduced him to the sport, allowing him to ride at Mack Arena (which McQuillan owns along with his wife Amy) just across the state border in Mercer County during Saturday rodeos.

Manor started to fall in love soon after.

“I was probably 5 or 6,” Manor said. “My grandpa got me so many bulls and I really started doing it every weekend trying as hard as I could.” 

Most young riders don’t start by riding bulls right away. More often, new and young riders will get on a bucking/drop barrel (a manual device in which a rider mounts a padded barrel that someone else can manipulate with a metal beam), calves or other livestock to learn the fundamentals of bull riding before graduating to an actual bull.

Manor attributes the aid and guidance his family gave him early on as reasons he is so successful today.

“It takes a lot of dedication, because a lot of people, they ride the barrel, trying to get their basic movement down, but the best way to learn is to get on, get on a live animal, and that's what I did for most of the part,” Manor said. “I wouldn't be where I'm at today without them.”

Manor has grown and moved on since those early days. Since turning 18 in October, he has competed in 15 PBR events, earning $19,422 and the No. 52 overall rank in the world.

He was even called into the PBR World Finals: Unleash the Beast in Fort Worth, Texas, as an alternate for being ranked close enough to the top 40 riders in the world. 

“I’m as proud as can be,” Adam Manor said. “Especially dad-wise. Knowing all the people around that I’ve met through all the years, to know that he has surpassed most of everybody I know it’s awesome.

“It’s really exciting. This last year has gone really fast.”

While Manor has found success in the arena, he has had some challenges to overcome outside of it. As he was jump-starting his career, Manor still had a semester left at Jay County High School. Manor overcame the problem by working with the school to create a schedule to allow him to take classes online and graduate.

Manor also had a lot of growing up to do in general. Since January, he has touched both coasts and more states in between. He has now competed in 13 different states including Oregon, California, Texas and South Carolina.

For plenty of these competitions, Manor has traveled alone, forcing him to learn the ins and outs of an airport and navigating new cities without help. He also ran into some problems with checking into hotels in cities and states that require one to be 21 to check into a hotel room alone. An example of this came on his trip to Sacramento, California, early February when his plane was delayed, forcing him to call the PBR secretary down at 3 a.m. to help him check in.

Manor did not back down from the challenge of growing up a little bit quicker despite being thrown directly into the fire.

“I got thrown into it,” Manor said. “I went from zero to 100, immediately. It’s rough sometimes with things like hotels. a lot of hotels, you’ve got to be 21 to even get a room. And I'm flying across the country trying to get one at 18.”

As he grew up and learned to take care of himself, he has also started to transition into a role model for the next generation of athletes to both help teach the sport and generate excitement.

“I love it. I love working with the kids,” he said.

After competing in so many national events the past seven months, Manor got the opportunity to come back home to compete. On Tuesday night, he competed in the 3 Bar J rodeo at the Jay County Fair in front of his home town.

He felt the love as the crowd welcomed him before his ride and after the event when Manor signed autographs behind the grandstand.

“It’s crazy,” Manor said. “Going to all these coliseums and stuff, yeah, that's cool, but when you're in front of a full grandstand of your hometown people and they just go crazy whenever they say your name, it's just unbelievable.”