That moment changed Cherrington’s mindset as an athlete. She learned that, in order to win like a champion, you have to lose like a champion, because both require humility.

Nearly 30 years later, humility is the core tenet Cherrington hopes to bring as a founding member and vice-chair of the newly formed Utah Valley University (UVU) Rodeo Board. The board brings together a group of alumni, business leaders, and community supporters whose charge is to provide the funding, recruiting support, and strategic direction that will carry the program into its next chapter.

For Cherrington, the answer to why she said yes was simple. “It’s just time to give back,” she said.

Building Infrastructure

Sitting there in the stands watching her sister, Cherrington thought about the practices she had cut short, her mindset at qualifying rodeos, and all the small decisions that had added up to the gap between where she was sitting and where she wanted to be. By the time she drove home, she had already reframed her failure and rewritten her schedule for the following year.

Cherrington graduated from UVU in 1996, a presidential scholar and a student-athlete who worked to reshape the rodeo program from the inside. When she noticed the team was not actively recruiting talented up-and-coming athletes, she started doing it herself. As Cherrington faced a tight budget that constrained her recruiting influence, Cherrington’s father, Paul, and another rodeo parent, Duane Sorenson, joined forces with coach Lewis Feild to approach local businesses.

Together, they raised enough money to offer scholarship support and bring in athletes who elevated the entire team, building the infrastructure the program needed to grow.

“If you don’t see success all around you, you aren’t competing against the best,” Cherrington said.

Raising Good Humans

UVU’s rodeo program is the oldest athletic program at the university, approaching its 60th anniversary in 2028. The competitive foundation Cherrington built has paid off; under current Head Coach Shane Draper, UVU Rodeo athletes routinely earn top marks at the College National Finals Rodeo.

The newly formed board is working to support the development of a new, permanent rodeo facility in Payson, with showgrounds, practice arenas, and livestock facilities.

Today, Cherrington is not a professional rodeo athlete. That was never the point. As a student-athlete, she learned sportsmanship, discipline, and perseverance, the skills that have followed her through nearly three decades of life after competition. They are also the things she is coming back to champion as a member of the UVU Rodeo Board.

“We’re not raising professional athletes here,” she says. “We’re raising good humans.”