University of Minnesota Athletics
Lamke Learns Life Lessons on the Farm
1/26/2018 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Junior center Annalese Lamke has appeared in 51 games during her Minnesota career. Last season, she was named an Academic All-Big Ten honoree and received the team's Iron Gopher Award for her dedication to strength and conditioning. Hard work is nothing new for Lamke. It's something that comes with the territory when you've spent the last eight years trying to control 1,000-pound animals in your spare time.
A native of Galesville, Wis., which has a population around 1,500 and is just across the border from Winona, Minn., Lamke grew up on a beef cattle farm. When she reached the age of 12, she was finally able to start showing on her own at county fairs and eventually to state fairs and other shows around the area.
The process of showing cattle starts in early September, according to Lamke, which is when they would go out and look for the calves they would want to show that year.
"In October they come home and a lot of time is then spent raising them from November until March when we're training them and getting them ready for shows," she explained. "We shampoo and condition them, use giant blow dryers to keep them dry. And then they're so spoiled because they're in their barn underneath huge fans and little sprayers to keep them cool during the summer so they keep their hair."
Come show day, the calf gets the full-pampered treatment.
"They'll have hair styling done to them, their hooves get black, so much time goes into that, and then we finally go in and show them," Lamke said. "We lead them around the ring and use a show stick to pull their feet into the right spot so they're positioned the best way."
Lamke said that structure (how they're framed and how their hind legs work together) and the appearance of the animal are two big things judges look for. They also want to see how the females move, while for the males, they'll come up and feel the animal to see how ready the meat is.
Despite being in her third season on the hardwood for the Golden Gophers, Lamke has still found time to show cattle largely in part because the shows take place in late spring and summer, soon after basketball season ends. Though this year, she said, she finally aged out of 4H and Future Farmers of America, so she'll have to move on to more open shows.
As they are livestock and not pets, after the animals are shown, Lamke said the their steers usually go to market and are sold to other people or they put them in their own fridge at home, while most of their heifers go into their family farm and are there to raise calves for the rest of their lives."
It's easy to get attached to each animal she works with so closely, but Lamke has learned over time how to adapt.
"It was really hard when I was a little kid," she said. "I remember always being super sad. But as I got older I understood their purpose.
"It still does get hard though, being an 18-year-old kid attached to a cow. Some of them have personalities, as weird as that sounds, so you do get close to them. But once it's time for them to go to market you just kind of space them off and stop calling them by their names."
Lamke's best showing came at her local county fair this summer when she took home Grand Champion Steer honors, but she also got first place in one of her classes at the Wisconsin State Fair.
In addition to the accolades, Lamke has taken away other things from her experiences. Hard work, obviously, is at the top of the list. Her next takeaway? Strength.
"A lot of strength building comes with it because when you're trying to lead a 1,000-pound animal across the ring they'll try to get away from you," she said. "You know your grip strength works pretty hard when you're trying to keep them in line."
This story, written by assistant director of athletic communication Karl Anderson, orginally appeared in the Jan. 18 game program
