Lumberjack champ Sean Duffy entertained Texas before he was secretary of transportation

Duffy was a world champion lumberjack, setting records for speed-climbing 90 foot poles. President Trump spoke publicly of Duffy's lumberjack skills as recently as Thursday.

Ronald W. Erdrich

Abilene Reporter-News

Updated May 19, 2025, 1:33 p.m. ET

Duffy's timbersports skills include log rolling, which he learned at age 5, and speed-climbing, in which he has held two titles.
He later served as a U.S. representative for Wisconsin's Seventh Congressional District from 2011 to 2019.

Have you ever sat down to watch television, the national news comes on and you think, "Hey, why's this dude look familiar?"

That's what went through my head the first time I saw Sean Duffy in his new role as U.S. transportation secretary.

Sean Duffy begins to fall into the tank of water as Geno Cummings manages to keep his balance on the rolling log at an afternoon performance of the Stihl Iron Jack Timber Team show at the West Texas Fair & Rodeo Sept. 13, 2006. The half-hour exposition showcased the talents of the two men in a variety of Iron Jack competitions like log rolling, axe throwing and speed climbing. An Iron Jack excels at all the lumberjack skills.

When I learned his name, that's when the memory returned of the 2006 West Texas Fair & Rodeo and the crazy lumberjack show from that year. Duffy was part of the "Iron Jack" team, holding Timbersports expositions like log rolling, wood chopping, competitive sawing and speed climbing.

The show was fun to shoot, and Duffy's participation gave it a certain wattage. Nowhere was that more apparent than the effect the former MTV "Real World" star had on the young reporter covering the story with me.

Sean Duffy races against Geno Cummings in a cross-cut saw contest Sept. 13, 2006, during one of performances of the Stihl Iron Jack Timber Team at the West Texas Fair & Rodeo.

Duffy's Timbersports skills were no joke.

He's held two titles for speed-climbing up 90-foot poles and learned how to log roll when he was 5-years-old. At the time of his visit, his day job was as the Ashland County district attorney in Wisconsin.

Audience members at the West Texas Fair & Rodeo watch as Sean Duffy cuts through a log as part of the Obstacle Pole Relay Sept. 13, 2006.

How those timbersports skills also worked in the courtroom was something I don't recall him explaining.

But a few years later he was elected to Wisconsin's Seventh Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, serving from 2011 to 2019.

While Duffy's competitive lumberjack days appear long behind him, they came up Thursday when President Donald Trump spoke to business leaders in Qatar during his Middle East trip, as reported by online British newspaper The Independent on that day.

With the days of lumberjack shows long behind him, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy testifies in front of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

In a video posted by the newspaper, Trump noted in an apparent tangent that Russia and Ukraine drone strikes have sawed down trees like "a top of the line timberman like ... you know who? Sean Duffy."

Trump added that his pick to head the Transportation Department was a world champion for his prowess climbing trees "up and down," The Independent reported.

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