by Josh Peter
In May 2003, at a rodeo in Arkansas, Lee suffered a head-to-head collision with a bull. He wanted to go straight home that night, but his mother insisted he go to the hospital. She, too, probably saved his life. Blood had settled on Lee’s brain, and doctors performed emergency surgery. The zipperlike scar on the right side of his skull provides a reminder of the near-fatal wreck.
At the time of the injury, Lee was in third place in the standings and chasing Shivers and McBride. The neurosurgeon told him he’d need 6 to 8 months of recuperation before he could ride again—provided he still had the heart for it. Lee returned to action in 3 months.
Though out of the race for the championship by the time he returned to action, Lee finished the season in sixth place, won more than $90,000, and stayed on 62 percent of his bulls—the best riding percentage of the 2003 season. Cody Custer, a onetime champion, was among those predicting Lee would be a future superstar. Others wondered if he could stand up to the pressure.
At the 2003 finals, Lee had successfully ridden only one of four bulls. But no one was tougher on Lee than Mike himself. He was a perfectionist, a devout Christian, and the most reclusive rider on tour. With his head down, he walked past most people as if they didn’t exist. Fellow riders knew he was talented but also suspected he was troubled. Most of them just had no idea why.
As mysterious as Lee was a cowboy-themed billboard that, during the 2003 finals, towered within sight of the Thomas & Mack Center. “Deep-Fried Twinkies,” it advertised, competing for attention with flashing neon lights and towering casinos dominating the skyline in a city overrun with buckle bunnies, as female rodeo groupies are known. Bull riding and the Twinkie, both quintessentially American. But the placement of the billboard was as incongruous as, well, the sight of bull riders swaggering into a packed arena to the sound of blaring rock music, pyrotechnics, and explosions, courtesy of the PBR.
The quest to learn more about deep-fried Twinkies, buckle bunnies, and bull riders was about to begin, and so was the PBR’s 2004 season. It would start in Jacksonville, Florida, with Shivers aiming to become the tour’s first three-time champion. With McBride hoping to end his hard luck. With Moraes wondering if he could revive his career. With Lee wanting to prove he could ride under pressure. With Little Yellow Jacket bucking for an unprecedented third Bull of the Year award. And with political tension between a bull riding icon and the tour’s chief executive officer threatening to pull apart everything the riders had worked for over the past decade.
At stake was nothing less than the $1 million bonus, the prized gold buckle, and the future of the PBR.
TWO
THE MARATHON BEGINS
Jacksonville, Florida
Saturday, December 27, 2003
Ninety minutes before the start of the season opener, Justin McBride and three other riders sat side by side at a table, signing autographs. The single-file line of fans snaked out of view. It included fathers and sons dressed in cowboy outfits, single mothers wearing too-tight jeans, preteen girls caked with eye shadow, and buckle bunnies clad in spaghetti-string tops.
The requests came fast and furious.
“Is it okay to take your picture, Justin?”
“As long as you don’t think it’ll break your camera.”
“Can I give you a hug?”
McBride stood up and obliged.
“This is the man. This is Justin McBride,” a father told his young son. “Shake his hand.”
McBride’s calloused right hand extended across the table.
The riders stayed on their best behavior, even if some of the fans didn’t. Cindy Jones and Angie Bass, two middle-aged women, ogled the riders. Jones explained that their husbands were somewhere in the woods. “They’re hunting deer, and we’re hunting cowboys,” she said, adding that they watched the PBR on TV, but this was their first live event. “We want to smell the bulls. We want to get that close.”
One step inside the arena was all it took. The place smelled of dirt, sweat, and manure. It was a pleasantly familiar smell for McBride, who 20 minutes later headed down to the arena floor for a question-and-answer session in front of about 100 fans. Kaleb McNeil, a 7-year-old boy dressed from head to toe in cowboy gear, asked a question that McBride strained to hear.
“He wants to know how you can handle those bulls,” the boy’s mother said.
McBride grinned.
“That’s something I’m still trying to figure out,” he said. “I think we’re all still learning. I don’t think it’s a sport you can ever have completely figured out.”
With the Q-and-A session over and less than an hour to go before the scheduled seven o’clock start of the Florida Times-Union Invitational, McBride headed back to the locker room. Walking up from behind, he wrapped his arms around Chris Shivers and squeezed.
Shivers whipped around. The two stood face-to-face.
“Cocksucker,”McBride said, breaking the silence.
They exchanged grins like long-lost brothers. Almost 2 months had passed since their season-long duel ended, and it’d been 5 weeks since they’d seen each other. In fact, no rider had seen McBride during the 5 weeks following the postfinals all-star event. For those who asked, he explained his disappearance. First, he’d taken refuge deep in the woods in Elk City. Still healing from his rib and lung injuries, McBride had been too sore to pull back the bow and arrow he used to hunt deer. Didn’t matter. He was hunting for peace of mind. Three weeks later, he’d flown to Italy with his girlfriend. The thing he liked best about the 2½-week trip was that none of the Italians knew who he was or asked him when he was going to finally win a championship. McBride didn’t want to talk about the 2003 season or his injuries, didn’t want to talk about bull riding at all. But from the moment he stepped into the locker room in Jacksonville, his voice boomed at its regular volume.
Not everybody appreciated the obscenity-laced soundtrack. It was a small locker room, and in it gathered a diverse group of young men. The beer drinkers and the born-agains. The faithful and the philanderers. Those seeking eternal life in heaven and those looking to raise hell. There they all were, dressed in their starched jeans and starched Western shirts, rubbing rosin onto their custom-made bull ropes and removing the lint from their cowboy hats, the PBR’s top riders all squeezed inside the same locker room deep in the bowels of Veterans Memorial Arena.
This is where it all began. The 2004 season. The chase for $1 million.
From the entryway of the locker room, a handful of PBR officials surveyed the surroundings. The contingent of riders included Australians, Brazilians, Canadians, a Mexican, and, of course, the Americans. They would spend much of the next 10 months together, hopscotching the country, sharing hotel rooms, and enduring broken ribs, busted lips, and broken dreams. From this motley group would come the next world champion.
But one of the best-known riders was missing. Adriano Moraes was nowhere to be seen. Word was, on the way to the airport in Moraes’s home country of Brazil, his truck had broken down. In 2003 he’d qualified for the finals but finished the season 29th, humiliating for the two-time champion. He’d left the finals in Las Vegas vowing to come back stronger than ever. But now some wondered if he was coming back at all.
As the seven o’clock start grew near, the riders grew quiet and looked up. Tuff Hedeman, president of the PBR and among the best riders ever, stood before them. “Y’all know the rules,” he said, “so I’m not going to go over them now.”
The basics were simple: The clock started when a bull’s shoulder or hip crossed the plane of the chute. If the rider stayed on for 8 seconds without touching the bull with his free hand, without touching the ground, and without allowing the bull rope to come out of his hand, he qualified for a score. Two judges, allotted 25 points each to score the rider’s performance, looked for good control, body position, and how well he stayed centered over the bull throughout the ride; and spurring the bull earned extra points. The same judges, allotted another 25 points each to score the bull
’s performance, looked for speed, power, and directional changes, such as a drop in the front end, a kick from the back end, and action when airborne. The scores were combined for a potential total of 100 points, with a 90-point ride the mark of excellence.
At the end of the season, the top 45 riders ranked by total earnings qualified for the finals in Las Vegas. But it was the points, with up to 600 available to each rider at a 1-day event and up to 900 available to each rider at a 2-day event, that would determine the world champion.
Unlike the 1-day event in Jacksonville that kicked off the start of the 2004 season, all but five of the 27 regular-season events ran 2 days, with a minimum purse of $80,130. Four of those events were Bullnanzas, premiere stops that predated the PBR and were vital to the tour’s early growth. But Hedeman had no time to review those details as the scheduled introductions for the season opener approached.
The bulls were waiting. So was a sellout crowd of more than 12,000. It was showtime.
With the fringe of their colorful leather chaps swishing and the star-shaped rowels on their spurs clink-clink-clinking on the concrete floor, the bull riders paraded out of the locker room and down the concrete tunnel. They were greeted by explosions, pyrotechnics, and blaring rock music. “This ain’t a rodeo,” the PA announcer thundered. “This is the one and only PBR!”
The smell of smoke from the extinguished fireworks mingled with the smell of bull manure as Bart Jackson settled onto Drifter for the first ride of the year. Both needed a solid performance in the worst way. Jackson, a Mississippi native with a stare colder than dry ice and 2 weeks from turning 24, had missed 4 months the previous season with a broken foot and broken collarbone and finished the year by getting bucked off on 10 of his last 11 rides. Drifter had been successfully ridden 10 consecutive times—a sure way for a bull to end his bucking career. The gate opened, and Drifter came out as if he knew he was headed for the slaughterhouse. Feebly jumping and kicking in a circle to the right, the 1,500-pound bull looked as ferocious as an overgrown calf. Jackson coasted to the buzzer for a 78.5-point score, and Mike Lee followed with an 86-point ride on Happy Jack. Two riders out . . . two qualified scores . . . it all looked so easy. Then came the face-plants, the thud landings, and the painful reality. Over the next 15 rides, 11 bulls won the battle, tossing the rider before the buzzer. That was more like it in the lopsided mismatch of man versus beast.
Without coaches, they went through their own preride rituals. Some, like Lee, sought seclusion. But most of the 45 riders waited on the metal deck that was sandwiched between the back pens and the chutes. There they squatted and stretched their groins, went through simulated bull ride moves, helped each other pull up the slack of the bull ropes, shouted encouragement, and burned off nervous energy. Tobacco juice fell like raindrops, and those in search of a nicotine buzz had no trouble finding it.
“Have any chew?” one rider asked another.
“Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?” he replied.
“Does a pond ripple when a duck farts?” countered the other.
Out came the tin of Copenhagen.
When it was time to ride, each man zipped up his black protective vest, jammed in his mouthpiece, climbed into the chute, and settled on top of the beast. With his rosin-coated bull rope wrapped around the bull’s midsection and cowbells tied to the end of the bull rope so the rope would fall rather than getting tangled when released, the rider pulled up the slack, made his hand wrap, and waited for the stock contractor to wrap the flank strap around the bull’s hindquarters.
Then came the rider’s signal—a nod or “Let’s go, boys” or simply “Go”—and the gateman swung open the chute gate. The clock started, and so did the violent dance.
Of the first 18 riders, only eight managed to stay on their bulls for 8 seconds, and it was no surprise to those familiar with the greatest mismatch in sports. The average rider failed to stay on more than half of the time. But the man up next was no average rider.
Sitting atop Extreme, Chris Shivers tried to get settled as the bull shifted in the chute. Shivers slapped the bull on the back, slapped him again, and reset the tail end of his bull rope. With the bull as steady as he’d get, Shivers signaled with a “Let’s go,” and the chute gate swung open.
Springing out from its hindquarters, Extreme dive-bombed, then lunged again before a full second had elapsed. Shivers leaned forward, up on his rope, chin down, free hand at a 90-degree angle—textbook. But the white bull with brown spots was just getting started. He spun hard to the right, away from Shivers’s riding hand, and unleashed a series of bucks as he picked up speed. The kicks sent the bull’s back end high into the air and each time jerked Shivers a little more off center.
Down he went, Shivers sailing off the side of the bull before the 8-second buzzer sounded. He popped back on his feet and hustled to the side. The three bullfighters—not to be confused with the barrelman, who was responsible for entertaining the crowd—stood ready to intervene if the bull went after Shivers. Apparently satisfied with his victory, Extreme exited through the center gate and went back to the holding pens.
Moments later the gateman moved in front of the chute holding Slider, a brown and white speckled bull. He was unridden in 13 attempts, but straddled atop his back now was Justin McBride. The bull rocked and thrashed in the chute, and McBride waited for the right moment before giving his quick nod to the gateman.
The chute gate swung open, and the bull charged out and turned back to the left, knocking McBride out of the pocket. Three jumps later, the bull rope slid through McBride’s right hand, and he slipped off the back end of Slider before the 8-second buzzer sounded. McBride crawled to a metal fence between the chutes and pulled himself to his feet, but he had company.
Unlike the bull Shivers rode, this one wanted more. Ignoring the outstretched hand of a bullfighter, Slider zeroed in on McBride, shoved his stubby horns into the rider’s gut, and pinned him against the metal fence. Standing on the deck behind the chutes, a rider threw his cowboy hat, which bounced off the giant bull like a BB pellet would’ve bounced off King Kong’s chest.
McBride wriggled free and staggered off with his hand over his right eye as the bullfighters distracted the bull and led him out of the center gate. Just like that, the top two riders from 2003 were done for the night. Neither would make the championship round featuring the 15 riders with the highest scores from the first round.
The championship round, also known as the short-go, featured not only the night’s top-scoring riders but also the PBR’s fiercest bulls. Bulls like Jack Daniels Happy Hour, Hammer, Kid Rock, Sling Blade, and, of course, the great Little Yellow Jacket. Like missiles, they were loaded into the chutes while the broadcasters on the Outdoor Life Network(OLN)—the cable station that broadcasts every BFTS event except for the eight televised by NBC—set the stage for the championship round. They had 15 minutes to fill while the dirt guy—who was responsible for finding and trucking in 3 million pounds of dirt for every BFTS event—operated a Peterbilt skiploader and smoothed out the surface in front of the chutes. The leveled dirt would provide better footing for the bulls and a softer landing for the riders—and, as usual, there would be teeth-rattling, bone-jarring landings during the championship round.
That night it was Rob Bell, a 26-year-old Canadian, who got the chance to ride Little Yellow Jacket. A slim chance. Four seconds into the ride, Little Yellow Jacket sent Bell flipping over his massive head. Bell’s chin clipped the bull’s left horn, opening a gash that required three stitches. He had no one to blame but himself and the PBR’s computer, which randomly matched the riders and bulls.
Six weeks removed from the finals, where he’d won a $20,000 bonus as the PBR’s 2003 Bull of the Year, Little Yellow Jacket looked as ferocious as ever. And that night in Jacksonville, he and his four-legged friends dominated. Two other riders suffered chin gashes that required stitches before Mike Lee, wearing his signature helmet, boarded Kid Rock, 2003 runner-up as Bull of the Year. Wi
th a small cross dangling from the zipper of his vest, Lee made his hand wrap, pounded his left fist closed, and nodded for the chute gate.
As Kid Rock lurched out, the spur on Lee’s left boot got caught in the rails. The force of the lunging bull yanked Lee’s foot loose as he tumbled off the bull. But the ride wasn’t over. Lee was hung up; with his hand still caught in the rope and the bull still bucking, Lee tried to stay on his feet. Kid Rock jerked him up and down off the ground like a mad puppeteer.
The force finally pulled Lee’s hand free and nearly pulled his riding shoulder out of its socket. He squeezed his eyes closed and grimaced while his arm hung limp.
Because he’d failed to get out of the chute cleanly, Lee would get a reride option—an opportunity to ride another bull, also awarded when the judges determined a bull performed so poorly that the rider didn’t have a fair chance to post a high score. Lee looked in greater need of medical attention than another bull ride. Still clutching his arm and 10 feet from the exit gate, Lee turned around and twirled his right index finger. Then he nodded at an official.
Yes, he was taking the reride later in the round. After all, this was the same guy whose scar on the right side of his head was a reminder that he’d come back from emergency brain surgery 3 months sooner than the doctor had predicted he would.
Next up, Jody Newberry, the 2003 Rookie of the Year, on Moody Blues, who on average bucked off 65 percent in 4.5 seconds. Like clockwork, 4 seconds into the ride, Newberry was slipping off the right side of the bull.
“Hustle, Jody! Hustle!” riders behind the chutes shouted.
As Moody Blues spun to his right, Newberry straightened up. He held on until the 8-second buzzer sounded and with his 10th qualified ride in the last 11 attempts showed why he was considered the hottest rider on tour. His 89-point score was just shy of the coveted 90-point club, the mark of excellence, but enough to move Newberry into the lead with the highest cumulative score on two bulls.
