Jayne travels long road to Vegas

Show me a cowboy who has arguably taken the most unique route to rodeo success, and I'll show you a Frenchman with a Texas accent.

And we'll show each other the same person.

That would be Evan Jayne. Born Yvan Pierre Jayne near Marseille, France, he was reared on trick riding as his father performed in a Wild West show in Europe. And after 17 years of hard work and thousands upon thousands of miles traveled, he finally finds himself at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo.

"I started trick riding before I ever knew about rodeo," said Jayne, now 33. "I happened to go to a show in Italy that had a rodeo, and I fell in love with it right away. I was like, 'This is for me.' It was my dream. It was all I could think of when I was 14, 15 years old."

So in 1998, at age 16, he left his family as a foreign exchange student and moved to the heart of cowboy country — Texas. Getting started in rodeo proved to be a challenging task, against teens who already had a lot of experience.

"It was pretty tough competition, especially for a kid who just started riding about a year earlier," Jayne said.

But a year later, he was the Texas high school bareback riding champion. By 2003, after getting more seasoning in college rodeo at Sam Houston State University, he got his PRCA tour card and began his pro career. However, while consistently finding himself among the top 30 or 40 bareback riders on practically a yearly basis, he just couldn't crack the top 15 to earn that WNFR berth.

Part of the reason why: he needed to keep his day job to make ends meet and couldn't commit to a full rodeo schedule.

"I was a school teacher all those years," said Jayne, who taught French (of course). "I'd go to a rodeo on Thursday night, drive all night and get back to school. Then I'd drive and hit rodeos on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and drive all night to get back to school Monday."

By 2012, Jayne was hitting the wall. Fortunately, his school teacher wife of two years, Kristin, was ready to proffer a solution.

"I was telling her that I was trying my hardest. She said, 'Quit your job, we got this. Just don't lose money. Just break even,'" Jayne said. "She knew that I had to give it a real try. She said, 'I know you're good enough to make it. Let's figure out some numbers.' She got the right job, and we said, 'OK, let's do it.'"

It was an odd situation, though. Having that kind of support, coupled with all the support his family had provided from afar for all those years, Jayne faced a new kind of pressure.

"It helps a lot to know you've got somebody backing you up, that all these people believe in you," he said. "But it's also a double-edge sword. You don't want to let them down."

He finished a respectable 24th in the world in 2013, then took an extended break in 2014 due to burnout. But this year, it all finally came together for the French cowboy. By the Fourth of July weekend, he'd already amassed more than $70,000, far more than he'd ever previously made in a single season.

"I knew I'd made it. On July 4, I was sitting No. 1 in the world," he said. "Seventy-thousand, that was the number. Then there was no pressure — just staying healthy and having fun."

He ended up having another $23,000 or so worth of fun, finishing the regular season at the end of September with earnings of $93,020, good for fourth in the world standings entering the WNFR. He won five rodeos and cashed at countless others.

"I really tried hard last winter, changed a few things in the way I ride, and I've ridden better," Jayne said. "It just clicked this year. I was able to get rid of a lot of bad habits in my technique. It was a mixture of, 'Wow, this is working,' and 'I'm an idiot, I should've done this 10 years ago.'"

This past week at the Thomas & Mack Center has been a long, long way from Jayne's trick-riding days in France, and it has ultimately confirmed to him that he made the right decision back in 1998.

"It's taken a lot of perseverance," said Jayne, now sixth in the world standings with season earnings of $146,808. "For me, it was always looking back. Look at how far you've traveled, what you were willing to give up to do what you're doing. I left my homeland to do this. I could not stop halfway. I needed to finish."

Kristin and 2-year-old daughter Sienna have joined him in Vegas, along with a strong international contingent.

"Lots of people coming from France. Mom, dad, uncles, aunts, two sisters, their husbands, lots of family friends. People who have seen me grow up and watched my journey from far away," Jayne said. "I still can't believe it. I feel like I live in a parallel world."

All thanks to that fateful discussion with Kristin back in 2012.

"It's just as much her Finals as it is mine," said Jayne, who can now look back with no regrets. "From now on, I can say all those sacrifices I made weren't for nothing. Nobody can take this away from me, and I'm happy forever."