FATHER’S DAY Speed Williams Seeing Fruits Of His Labor Paying Off Through His Daughter Hali By Ted Harbin S peed Williams had heard the stories from the previous generations about the biggest regrets in rodeo. Oh, there was a passion for the game they played, and there was an on-again-off-again kinship with the road. They didn’t anguish over the competition and the trips to the National Finals Rodeo. They had no remorse for battling to be the best the sport had to offer, but they had regrets.
“During mine and Rich’s last world title,” he said of his eight straight gold buckles earned with his heeling partner, Rich Skelton, “we both had babies on the ground, and both of my good horses had went down. It was a real different year, a struggle year. We went one more year and made the finals, and I got hurt. “I visited with a lot of old-timers, and one of their big regrets was their kids were graduating high school, and they’d been on the road their whole career and missed a whole bunch.” He didn’t want that to happen to him. From 1997-2004, Williams and Skelton knocked down the walls and set a new standard for winning team roping’s top prize. Nobody could beat them over that stretch. No tandem has won more. It wasn’t until Clay Tryan and Patrick Smith
claimed rodeo’s gold in 2005 that they were topped. “I had a few clients that I’d done schools for, very wealthy people, and they’d been gone all the time and didn’t have a relationship with their children,” Williams said. “That was the burning of the fire behind me, trying to figure out how to make a living not rodeoing. The problem was, I had good money and was making $200,000 to $250,000 in sponsorships. It was hard not to rodeo. “That’s where I came up with my website, SpeedRoping.com, to teach people and my kids while I stayed home and let people see my journey. Now, that’s what I do pretty much every day, that and private lessons.” Being a father meant that much to the world titlist. By the time he made his last of 15 NFRs in 2008, he and his wife, Jennifer, were the proud parents of two children, Hali and Gabe. Fifteen years later, the tides have changed and the tutelage he has issued over that time has been learned by his own flesh and blood. The oldest is Hali, now 19 years old and the No. 1 cowgirl in the WPRA ProRodeo breakaway roping world standings. She’s likely not in this position had her father not altered his life and way of living so many years ago. As the calendar now turns to Father’s Day, it’s a father-daughter tale that’s hard to miss. “I changed my whole projective in life,” said Speed, a 2018 inductee into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. “I wanted to raise my kids on my terms and give them an opportunity in life to make their own decisions. Speed Williams made the decision when his kids were born that he was going to be there to see all their great milestones whether it be in rodeo or something else. He has been their biggest cheerleader and supporter and now his daughter is reaching new heights in the sport of professional breakaway roping. Photo courtesy Hali Williams
Hali Williams has one of the best and most accomplished ropers in the sport of rodeo in her corner but the best part of that is she also gets to call him DAD. Speed Williams won eight consecutive world titles during his career before taking a back seat to competition so he could watch his children grow up. He is now reaping the fruits of his labors as Hali is ranked No. 1 in the WPRA. Photo by Kenneth Springer
14 WPRA NEWS JUNE 2023
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