Rhylee Inman, chasing dreams every day. (Photos courtesy Carissa Peters)
“Rodeo is my home!”
Rhylee Inman, who will be a freshman at Coupeville High School this fall, is fairly unique among her peers in Wolf Nation.
She’s a very talented volleyball player who showed great promise at the net during her middle school days, while also playing little league softball and participating in 4-H.
But it’s rodeo, the high-energy sport made famous by country music legends like George Strait and Garth Brooks, which truly sets Inman apart.
There just aren’t a ton of teenage athletes on Whidbey Island who can work magic from the back of a horse, but she’s that rarity.
Inman has been chasing the dream since she was old enough to first sit astride her trusty steed, and she is fully committed to pursuing the sport for years to come.
“My goals for my high school career are to get a scholarship to Nebraska in volleyball and join a college rodeo team,” she said.
Rodeo has taken her across the state, with competitions in goat tie, barrels, poles, and breakaway roping.
Inman and her partner fly into action.
“This is not just a sport to me,” Inman said. “This is a community and my best friend.
“I grew up on my family’s farm on the back of a horse doing simple speed events, but I later got introduced into rodeo. Rodeo is a completely different world compared to anything I have ever done.
“The community is your competition but also your family.
“You fail and fail but they bring you up and help you. We all are going through something, but we help each other.”
While chasing her volleyball and rodeo dreams, Inman also hopes to play high school softball. She was ready to make the jump as an 8th grader, but a shoulder injury sidelined her this spring.
Regardless of which sport she’s playing at the moment, the young Wolf approaches each of them with an open heart.
“Enjoying being an athlete for me isn’t just the sport,” Inman said. “It is the team/community that surrounds you.
“If I didn’t have my people around me, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the pressure under the performance. And the intensity that I thrive in.”
Controlling the action on the volleyball court. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
Inman, who enjoys “ripping the ATVs around, spending time with my horses, and going into the mountains,” credits her mom for her support and guidance.
“I owe my mom for my entire athlete career,” she said.
“If my mom wasn’t here for me, I wouldn’t have continued to play sports after I got in my head, I wouldn’t have been able to attend to any sports, and she pushes me to keep going when the game gets intense.”
When in action Inman seeks to find inner balance, something she is still working on.
“My best strength as an athlete is ignoring my emotions on the court no matter how many mistakes I make,” she said.
“If you dwell and show how sad or mad you are, you bring your team down with you. So, I learned how to control this.
“But I do have a lot of areas to each of the sports I play that need to be improved and tuned up,” Inman added. “One thing I would like to improve is the way I hold myself AFTER a loss.
“There has been countless nights after a bad race that I talk down on myself because I know I could have done better or when I let a ball drop on the court.
“I know if I feed good things into my brain after a loss and think of ways to not let it happen again, I will be a better leader to my team or horse.”
Ready to take on the world.
Coupeville Sports 