Bull riders bring high-octane entertainment

 

Think of it as Vince McMahon meets Jesse James and his bull riding cousins.

An all-world entertainment magnate coming together with the toughest cowboys from Canada, the United States, Brazil and Australia.

Only instead of bringing you an action-packed, yet choreographed show, the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) trade in the script for up to eight seconds of riveting action atop an unruly 2,000-pound bull that is hoping to throw you as far as possible.

Toss in some pyrotechnics, pounding music and you've got the high-octane PBR show that's coming to the MTS Centre tomorrow and Saturday.

"It's two hours of intense, bull riding action," said Cody Snyder, a World Champion bull rider who retired in 1993 and is now the event producer for PBR. "You can't script this, this is real. When these guys bleed or these guys get hauled out in the ambulance, it's real. When they get taken to the hospital, they're hurt. There is nothing fake about this.

"These guys don't go on strike. They show up and they're laying their lives on the line every time they nod their head."

However, the PBR story itself still has its share of Hollywood to it.

Back in 1992, a group of 20 riders came up with $1,000 each in an effort to break away from the rodeo scene.

Since bull riding was the main event of most rodeos, the riders felt they deserved a little more of the limelight.

"That's why the bull riding was at the end, everybody would leave if it was at the start," said Snyder, who has been involved with the PBR since Day 1. "We knew we had a saleable product."

What was seen as a bit of a gamble at the time has proven to be a sound investment.

And before you even think of dismissing the PBR as just another fringe sport from the south, consider this:

In 1994, the total annual prize money awarded was $660,000 and 10 years later -- thanks to corporate sponsors and TV getting on board -- purses had increased to more than $9.5 million. This year's prize money tops $11 million.

The PBR also has ratings in the U.S. the NHL would love to approach.

"The brand is extremely popular in the U.S. and it's growing in Canada," said PBR Canada media relations director Rhonda Snyder, noting there could be as many as 12 events held in Canada this year, culminating with the PBR Canada finals in late November. "It's not a country-hick thing either. It's an extreme sport -- a rock 'n' roll rodeo -- and people will be blown away once they're there."

The PBR, which is billed as the toughest sport on dirt, hasn't been to Winnipeg since holding a show at the Arena in 1997.

"The calibre of athletes and bull riders themselves, have stepped it up a notch and there's a lot more really good bulls than there was," said Snyder. "With the TV exposure that the PBR has worldwide, it's brought the prize money up to a level you never thought would probably happen this soon.

"It's exploding. Every year it's getting bigger and bigger. It's the fastest growing sport in North America. It's huge. The PBR patterns itself after what NASCAR has done. I don't know if it can get that big, but the sky seems to be the limit right now."

 

The Rodeo is in it's 92nd year and officially kicks off Friday,  but Thursday night dozens of the best riders from across the country competed in extreme bull riding.

You could say he was destined to be a bullrider from birth. His name is Cody Buller. The Montana native has been riding since he was just 8-years-old. "I was hooked...that what I was going to do so all I've ever wanted to do."

Now with 17 years of competitions and dozens of wins under his belt, Buller is getting ready for the Clovis Rodeo Extreme Bullriding competition.

Even though he may have a fractured leg. "It's not a bone that serious enough that you can't ride,..its just going to hurt like heck for a while."

While bullriding can be dangerous, so can bull fighting. A bull fighter's job is to make sure the bull stays clear of the rider after he falls off.

Bull fighter Shorty Gorham said,  "You love the job, love seeing a guy walk away a love seeing a guy walk away and go to a rodeo he might not of had you not been there."

It's all the excitement that comes with bullriding that draws the big crowds. Rodeo fan Dan Belden said, "How much do we look forward to this every year, a lot right...we love this, we love the rodeo."

Fan Kathryn Allen confesses, "I like the bull riding...and the single cowboys."

As for Buller's ride, he got knocked off and out of the competition in just a few seconds. "I'm a little mad...anytime I don't get a score and I get bucked off."

And injured or not, these riders can't afford to miss a ride. They not only have to pay hundreds to get a chance to compete, but they also miss out on a chance at a $25,000 prize.

Even as the bull's horn sliced through his eye, Jason Cahill had no second thoughts.

There was just one overwhelming urge bouncing around in his brain: "I wanted to get back on him," Cahill said. "I felt like I owed him one."

Cahill was 16. His mom caught the entire incident - Cahill's ride, which lasted the eight seconds bull riders aim for, the kick by the bull at the end that threw Cahill over his riding hand and left him dangling there as the bull whipped his head around - on videotape.

Cahill did ride that bull again, after his right eye socket and his ruptured nasal passage were repaired.

"He didn't buck like he did the first time," Cahill said.

Now 23, Cahill has two steel plates in his head and a steel rod in his shoulder, and was easy to pick out from a crowd of cowboys Friday at the Hampton Coliseum because of his pronounced limp. Three weeks ago in Daytona Beach, Fla., his spur caught in his rope as he fell from a bull. The bull stepped on the inside of his left leg and snapped his kneecap.

"I was supposed to have it set back in place and a cast put on it, but you can't ride bulls with a cast on," Cahill said.

He told the surgeon who called that any surgery would have to wait as he was driving from his home in Virginia Beach to Friday's Professional Bull Riders' Hampton Invitational Enterprise Tour Event. Until when wasn't exactly clear.

"I eat all year 'round," Cahill said. "Bill collectors collect bills all year 'round."

To earn money, bull riders - except for the elite top 45 in the PBR standings - have to show up and swing themselves over the bucking chute onto the back of a waiting bull.

"You get your arm broke, you go home. Sorry," said Sam Gallaher, 26, from Kingston, Ark., who has been riding bulls since he was 13 and once shattered all the bones on the left side of his face. " ... Guys usually have broken ankles, broken bones in their legs. Several things are wrong with them, and they'll keep going. It's not because they necessarily are crazy or that they're not very smart, it's just they have to. Their livelihood depends on them showing up."

So strips of white tape were common accessories Friday night, flashing underneath the sleeves of plaid shirts and providing a pale contrast to brightly colored chaps. Thumbs and forefingers were bound together, wrists were tightly wrapped, elbows were shielded from the hard-packed dirt of the riding arena.

It's what cowboys do as they obey a pull they've never been able to resist.

"I don't ever remember choosing to be a bull rider," said 20-year-old Colby Neumeier of Canton, Texas. "It just chose me."

James White stood brushing his riding rope as fans filtered into the Coliseum an hour before showtime. White, 30, from Houston, has been riding since he won a local event at age 19.

"I just wanted to ride bulls since I was a little kid," White said. "It was my calling."

That calling comes with a price tag. White displayed his by opening his mouth to reveal shiny rows of gold caps. In 2001, he broke his jaw in five places when his head collided with the bull's.

White's jaw was wired shut for eight months, and doctors refused to let him ride - which may have been the most painful part of the experience for White, who left Houston on Thursday and didn't stop until arriving in Hampton 22 hours later.

"I'm living my dream," White said. "I'm walking my dream. A lot of people are not."

Next to White, Mike Collins also readied his rope. Collins, 26, from Pryor, Okla., has won more than $350,000 in his five-year professional career and is a member of the PBR's main tour, the Built Ford Tough Series. With that tour on a break this weekend, several of its stars came to Hampton to compete on the lower-level Enterprise Tour, where riders work to earn points and move up the PBR ladder, much like minor-league baseball players.
Collins has a PBR win under his belt buckle, the 2004 Built Ford Tough rodeo in Fort Worth, Texas. He also has a slightly crooked finger that was crushed once and a vague recollection of "breaking something in my back" at one time or another.

But another memory has proven harder to shake off. Collins was 17, in just his second year of riding bulls, when he saw a good friend and former baseball teammate die at a rodeo.

"It just happened. (The) bull just came out backwards - I don't wanna talk about it, really," said Collins, whose reaction to the tragedy was immediate and telling. " ... I got on three bulls after that, because if I didn't, I knew I would probably never get on again."

Collins was one of the last riders in Friday's first round. Riders were assigned slots and bulls by random draw, and the top 10 scorers advanced to a challenge round.

Collins didn't stay on his bull, Screamin' Eagle, for the eight-second mark, meaning his ride wasn't scored. But that wasn't the worst part.

As Collins fell, the bull caught him with his hind legs and bucked him hard into the arena gate. After a few minutes, Collins got to his feet and made a slow, painful retreat, clutching his left inner thigh. Emergency medical personnel followed him into the locker room, but moments later he emerged and began stuffing his riding gear into a duffel bag.

Collins' night was over, as was Cahill's. Not guaranteed a ride on Friday because his status on a doctor's release list barred him from signing up for an event for two weeks, he showed up anyway, hoping someone else wouldn't.

He got his wish, but his ride was a short one. After four seconds, maybe five, Cahill landed beside his hat in the dirt, then quickly bounded to his feet, dodging the bull as it swung toward him.

Moments later, he held an ice pack to his trembling left hand. The bull stepped on it, the dirt didn't give, and Cahill, unable to move his fingers, figured his hand was broken.

That didn't stop him from toting his 2-year-old nephew, Colton Cahill, around in the crook of his uninjured arm. Colton, his head swallowed by his father Josh's oversized black cowboy hat, grinned up at his uncle as melting ice dripped onto the concrete floor.

"He's his biggest fan," Josh Cahill said.

Jason Cahill moved to Virginia Beach from his family's farm in Missouri to help out Josh and his wife, Katie, after Colton was born. His family members watch him ride when they can, although Katie wasn't so sure about the whole business at first.

"It's kinda grown on me," Katie Cahill said. " ... They've convinced me this is the bull's job."

It's Jason's, too. As he quickly pointed out, he rides right-handed, so he and Josh will be on the road Saturday night to another rodeo, this one in Jacksonville, N.C.

Once he gets there, he won't think about his hand - or his knee, or his shoulder, or his eye.

"If you think you're gonna get hurt, you might as well not put your hand in there, because it's gonna happen," Jason Cahill said. "It gets the guys that fear it. I don't fear nothing a bull can do to me. The way I look at it, he oughta fear me."

Behold the mighty bull. Not only is this fierce creature a symbol of our heritage, an emblem of a time when the continent was a menacing, untamed wilderness, it also happens to be delicious.

Most of us experience the allure of the bull not so much on the vast wind-swept plains of cowboy lore but at Burger King. So maybe it's a good thing that the Professional Bull Riders tour is coming to town this weekend for the Enterprise Rent-a-Car Classic. We could use a reminder of what these great beasts are truly made of. Besides ground chuck, that is.

The PBR promises to show us bulls in all their glory. Popular out West, the Colorado-based circuit has been expanding eastward in recent years. Thanks to broadcast deals with NBC and OLN, the riding of the bulls is making inroads in places where the buffalo don't roam and the deer and the antelope don't play. Savvis Center being one of those places, bull-riding enthusiasts may find a few confused newbies in their midst come Friday. For the befuddled fans we offer the following FAQ.
Yes, and so are the circuit's organizers. PBR officials have modeled their enterprise on stock-car racing. NASCAR was once a Southern phenomenon, but it branched out into other parts of the country by catering to families and marketing stars as ordinary people. PBR chief Randy Barnard told The New York Times he sees similar potential in bull riding. "If you lay the NASCAR (demographics) over our demos, they're almost identical," Barnard said. That might sound like a load of, uh, bull, but consider this: Since the PBR was founded in 1992, it has parlayed $20,000 in start-up money into a $40 million business. Is that serious enough for you?

I've decided to go. What are my chances of survival?

Good. Unless you're a rider, in which case the odds decrease. "Every time these guys go out there to ride, there is a realistic risk of being maimed or killed," PBR medical chief Tandy Freeman states on the circuit's Web site. The news ticker atop the site supports this claim. It reads like an ER doctor's nightmare shift: broken shoulder blade ... bruised liver ... concussion ... knee sprain ... broken collarbone. Head injuries are common, but few riders wear helmets, which interfere with peripheral vision and detract from the sport's aura of fearless machismo. "It's an issue we're struggling with," Freeman says.

So, who's worth watching?

Start with the bulls. The rodeo bull is essentially a 2,000-pound keg of testosterone sheathed in muscle and armed with two lethal bayonets. The "animal athletes," as they're called, are among the circuit's most popular personalities. They are ranked and celebrated, with OLN once airing a biography of an especially dangerous bull named Bodacious. The animals do more than cause mayhem; they help determine riders' scores. Of the 100 points a rider can accrue, the bull is responsible for 50. It's a degree-of-difficulty component similar to the ones used in Olympic sports. Except that no one goes by the name of Smokeless Wardance in figure skating.

What about the people?

The Built Ford Tough Series points leader is Chris Shivers, a Louisianan who in January became the first rider to surpass $3 million in career earnings. That'll buy a lot of surgical screws. Justin McBride is a fan favorite currently ranked sixth. McBride is part of a bull-riding family from Elk City, Okla. His grandfather was killed in the ring, and he has suffered a few setbacks himself since straddling a calf for the first time at age 3. McBride has had a lung punctured, a rib cracked and an ankle broken. But he was healthy enough last year to claim the world championship and the $1 million bonus that went with it.

Will bull riding change my life?

Possibly. Cowboy culture mixes the sacred and the profane. Groupies known as "buckle bunnies" take care of the latter, while bull-riding Christian outreach groups tackle the former. You read that right. Riding High Ministries holds church services in conjunction with PBR events and sees bull riding as a path to spirituality. "The world needs to see men who are fully alive," ministry organizers explain in their mission statement. "Men who are more afraid of not living life than they are of death itself. This is what these Christian bull riders exemplify. Meekness, not weakness."

But it's a soft landing and happy tails for these suburban cowboys.

Once there was a time when mechanical bulls were truly wild. They bucked like oil derricks, delivered the occasional spinal injury and gave the whole herd a bad name.

"They were intended for people who want to get thrown off violently," said Evan Perry as he stood by the controls of a legless mechanical bull on a recent Tuesday afternoon. This bull, which is currently pastured in Roanoke's Valley View Mall, was said to be family-safe.

And shortly, Austin Mercy, a smiling 8-year-old from Roanoke, hopped on while his father, Scott, stood nearby.

"You got to try everything once," the elder Mercy observed while the bull bucked and spun. "Like with boxing. I've been in the ring one time, and I can say I've tried it."

Exactly 90 seconds later, Austin could say he had tried a mechanical bull.

Riders over 12 were a bit more hesitant. As mallgoers paused to watch, two young men (average age 19.5) who had hung back for several minutes finally took a turn. Both lasted about 30 seconds before they were pitched onto the inflated ring that circles the bull.

Some may have been tamed, but this remains the mechanical bull's reason for existing. "People like seeing other people get tossed around," Perry said.

Like karaoke night, the appeal of riding a mechanical bull often increases with alcohol, Perry noted, which may explain why the bulls have historically been a fixture of the tavern. But Perry's employer, Dave's Moonwalks & More, discovered that kids are eager riders, too.

The bulls they rent out have settings for gentle, though the difficulty knob turns all the way up to 7. Perry said he can shake most riders off by level 4 (operators control the bull with a joystick).

As might be expected, riding a robo-bull is only vaguely like riding a real bull.

"All a bucking machine can do is go faster," explained Ty Murray, a nine-time professional rodeo champion. A bull that has made it to the Professional Bull Riding ring, he said, has much more sophisticated ways of shaking its rider.

Murray, who officially endorses the Rocking B. Bucking Machine, drew a parallel with baseball. He said the mechanical bull is to a real bull what hitting baseballs in a batting cage is to facing down a Randy Johnson fastball.

"It gives you a simulation for what it would be like without the chance of real injury or death," Murray said in a phone call from Texas.

Most rodeo realism disappears when the mechanical bull rider is bucked off. Professional bull riders, when dislodged, try to turn belly down and roll, because the force of a hard landing can break hand bones, Murray said. The amateur mechanical bull rider can get by with a much less disciplined free-fall.

A few of the afternoon's riders proved this at the mall, falling backside first, at least one taking what might be a career-ending spill if it had been in the rodeo arena.

James Parker, a 22-year-old from Bedford County, drew praise when he spun 180 degrees on the seat of his pants, adding a full second to his time, before being deposited on the inflated landing surface. When he was standing again, he gave an explanation: "I got this big belly. Once it starts" -- he moved his belly to the side to demonstrate -- "there's a momentum problem."

At last it came time for a fellow who had been standing around the bull for an hour or so to take his turn. The decision was aggravated by the jeers of a man who was watching nearby with a baby carriage (presumably his excuse for not riding the bull).

The rider, a 24-year-old Roanoke resident who was concerned about inflaming the sciatica in his left hip, was reassured by the operator that there would be no funny business. He climbed onto the bull.

Perry called out a few pointers: Bring your legs up on the bull's neck ("the last place you want your legs" on a real bull, Murray said). Hold onto the single rope rein with one hand; use the other arm for balance.

The ride began somewhat smoothly, not much more than a hostile carousel ride. After a few seconds, the bull began a more complex bit of twists and heaves, and somewhere shy of 30 seconds later, the young man landed on his rump.

"Bull riding, in a nutshell, is having a countermove for everything," Murray said.

And the countermove after a fall is to hop up, straighten your clothes and step from the faux rodeo back into the mall.