Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies, & Bull Riders

by Josh Peter

  Accustomed to socializing with the wealthy, the Duvalls enjoyed the down-home people they met on the PBR tour. There were plenty of them gathered in the Holiday Inn lobby in Bossier City in anticipation of the PBR’s third stop of the 2004 season. Many of those fans attended the next day’s church service, held more than 8 hours before the first bull would burst out of the chutes on the second night of competition. Some of the riders were still sleeping off hangovers. But 10 of them—including Akin and Navarre—were up and at the arena to praise God.

  So was Adriano Moraes.

  Suspicion that he’d retired from bull riding had ended the previous week in Worcester, Massachusetts, at the second event of the season. Moraes, absent from the season opener after missing his flight from Brazil, rode all three of his bulls in Worcester and won his first BFTS victory since April 2002.

  About 15 minutes into Cowboy Church in Bossier City, Pierce handed the microphone to Moraes, who told the crowd he was there to talk about the best year of his life and the worst season of his career—which were one and the same.

  He was stocky, with thick arms and thick legs, and bright eyes that projected warmth. Frowning on the use of profanity in public, Moraes might shout,“Holy macaroni!” Or compliment a bull by calling him a “tough son of a buck.” Or substitute “pain in the brain” for “pain in the ass.” He turned down offers of $50,000 and up to endorse companies that sold liquor or tobacco, because he didn’t want to influence kids to drink or smoke. With his good looks and gregarious personality, he charmed the fans and prompted exchanges like this:

  Young girl: “Adriano!”

  Moraes: “What??!!”

  Young girl: “Our babysitter likes you!”

  That Saturday morning, Moraes was at Cowboy Church to share a personal testimony about his abrupt descent only 2 years after winning his second PBR championship.Moraes’s undeniable gift for bull riding vanished during the 2003 season, when Tuff Hedeman declared on TV that it was time for the Brazilian to quit. Desperate, Moraes poured all of his energy into preparing for an event in Nashville in June 2003. He started working out, lost 13 pounds, and focused with laserlike intensity.Moraes told his wife, Flavia, that Nashville would be his breakout event and was so convinced that he took her and his three sons with him so they could all enjoy his long-awaited triumph. They witnessed something else.

  During the 2-day event, Moraes bucked off both of his bulls; and after the final night of competition, the family went straight back to the hotel room. With the boys sleeping in a bed next to them, Adriano Moraes and his wife wept.

  “It’s over,” Adriano remembers saying. “My career is over.”

  “It’s not over, Adriano,” Flavia soothed him.

  She was a devout Catholic and, since they’d met 14 years earlier, had urged Adriano to get his priorities in order: God first, family second, then bull riding. But after he’d won the 2001 PBR championship, the order had shuffled. In fact, at times Adriano Moraes thought he was the god of bull riding. So when his career suddenly nose-dived,Moraes lost what defined him. If he was a loser in bull riding, he concluded, he was a loser in life.

  But that night in Nashville, after months of ignoring his wife’s advice, Moraes decided he had no choice but to let it all go—the pressure, the worry, the fear—to let go of bull riding as the source of his identity and remember he also was a husband, father, and son of God. The next morning, Moraes woke up and looked at his wife with the megawatt smile his family had not seen in months. Adriano and Flavia said nothing. They just smiled.

  Over the next several weeks, Moraes’s home life improved, and gradually so did his bull riding.

  The week before the Horseshoe Louisiana Shootout in Bossier City, Moraes won at Worcester, signaling the Brazilian champion was back and a potential contender for the 2004 championship. Yet during his talk at the church service, he talked only about his tortuous 2003 season.

  “I was living behind the shine of my gold buckles, not my spirituality,” he said in his Brazilian accent. “If you don’t have your faith, you’re going to fail, like Adriano Moraes did.”

  When the church service ended, Navarre and Lee approached Moraes. They’d been sitting near the front row during the talk, spellbound. They told Moraes how much they appreciated his candor, and then the three men huddled in prayer. Hands resting on each other’s shoulders, they formed a small circle and bowed their heads. Back at the hotel, other riders were praying Troy Dunn would go back to Australia.

  Instead of “G’day, mate,” it was more like “Get lost, mate.”

  On the first night of the Horseshoe Louisiana Shootout, about an hour before the competition started, Justin McBride was in the locker room, recounting a recent hunting trip—“Killed a big, stupid buffalo with a bow and arrow”—when the legendary Australian walked in.

  “Troy Dunn, what are you doing here?” asked B. J. Kramps, a Canadian rider, and without waiting for an answer added,“How long are you here for?”

  Once again, before Dunn could answer, Kramps continued, “It must be really encouraging—you show up, and the first thing we ask you is when are you going to leave.”

  Dunn had sun-bleached brown hair and a tanned face that made him look younger than his 36 years. He was sturdily built at 5 feet 10 inches tall and 165 pounds and had the ethereal calm of Crocodile Dundee. Australia’s answer to Moraes, he had won the 1998 PBR championship and more than $1 million on tour. His last full season had been in 1999; and in recent years, he’d become legendary for swooping in from Australia, winning bagfuls of money, and jetting back to his two ranches in Queensland. Back again for a stay of indeterminate length, Dunn said, “It’ll be bloody good if I could win some cash.”

  From across the room, Jody Newberry watched Dunn as if he were in the presence of royalty. “Best bull rider that ever walked the face of the earth,” Newberry declared. But now Dunn was among the oldest.

  Of the riders who finished the 2003 season ranked in the top 10, the average age was 25, and only one was older than 30—Owen Washburn, 32, who had retired in 2001 before coming back the next season.

  But on this night, Dunn wouldn’t stay around long. In the first round at Bossier City, after a 79.5-point ride on Tuff Snuff, Dunn stiffened after his dismount and limped out of the arena. He’d aggravated a back injury so badly that he turned down a reride option, unheard of for someone as tough as Dunn. After a visit to the sports medicine room, he left the arena with a sleeve of anti-inflammatory pills and doubtful for the second day of competition—a reminder that bull riding was a young man’s game.

  Four hours after the Cowboy Church Saturday morning, Corey Navarre returned to the near-empty CenturyTel Center and stood behind the chutes. He had muscled shoulders, a square jaw, and the intensity of a Secret Service agent. Behind the curtain of his serious face was an introspective 26-year-old. As he watched the bulls mill about their pens, he contemplated his past and future.

  Growing up in Sulphur, Louisiana, Navarre cared little for team sports. He possessed the individualism often associated with the American cowboy and as a teenager got turned on to bull riding. He bought a used mechanical bull and practiced as often as time allowed, but nothing compared to riding the real thing, staring down fear as he climbed atop 1-ton bulls.

  “It’s man versus beast,” he said. “It’s not you and five other guys working as a team. It’s just you, and you’re responsible for your wins or your losses. The challenge, just being able to tame something that’s untamable. The feeling of conquering something . . . ”

  His words drifting off, Navarre gazed at the bulls in the back pens.

  “These guys are athletes as well,” he said, nodding at the bulls. “They try just as hard to buck us off as we do to stay on them.

  “When you get on a rank bull, it’s like walking a tightrope. There’s no room for mistakes. If you make a mistake, you’re going to hit the ground.”

  After winning more than $175,000 in the PBR during the 2001 season,
Navarre took home less than $13,000 the next season; and his 40th-place finish and $45,000 in winnings in 2003 marked only modest improvement. Part of his struggles stemmed from injuries that included a crushed cheek and fractured eye socket, which led to his wearing a helmet, and a blown-out knee that required reconstructive surgery. But even with a clean bill of health as he entered 2004, the first two events of the season offered no sign of a turnaround. Navarre bucked off his only bull at the season opener and rode one of two bulls the next week.

  Later that night at the CenturyTel Arena, during the second round of the Horseshoe Louisiana Shootout, Navarre settled atop Lancaster’s. When the chute gate opened, the bull lurched hard to the left, then whipped back to the right. Despite his strained riding arm, Navarre looked steadier than the quick-moving bull did. Lancaster’s worked into a flat, low spin to the right; and Navarre could have exchanged his riding helmet for a blindfold and still made the 8-second buzzer. He earned only 82.5 points for the ride and that, coupled with his 85.5-point ride on Slingshot the night before, secured him a spot in the championship round. Not that anybody in the sellout crowd of 12,000 was thinking about Navarre. Next up was Louisiana’s pride, Chris Shivers.

  Before the chute gate even opened, Toe Mash reared up and rocked Shivers. Riders behind the chute reached across Shivers’s chest and back to steady him. But Shivers looked unfazed. When he called for the gate, Toe Mash bucked into the open and kicked up his hindquarters as if attempting to do a handstand. But he bucked rhythmically, almost languidly; and Shivers rode effortlessly, spicing the ride by whipping his free hand hard and high in the air. Dismounting to cheers, he earned 86 points and moved into the overall lead.

  It was time for the championship round, time to load up the rankest of bulls, time for another look at Little Yellow Jacket, who made rider Spud Whitman look more like Sputnik. Little Yellow Jacket launched the 32-year-old Kansan into orbit before he came crashing back to earth.

  Riding eighth in the round, Navarre climbed atop Wild Bill and stayed in rhythm as the bull spun left before a late turn-back to the right. His score: 90 points! Instead of rejoining the riders behind the chutes, Navarre ran toward the locker room with seven riders left, including the crowd favorite. Wild cheers greeted Shivers as he boarded Tahonta, unridden in nine attempts. The chute gate opened, and the bull reared as if in slow motion, then dropped his front end with the force of an anvil. Shivers tumbled off and hit the dirt headfirst. Hands pressed against his forehead, he squeezed his eyes closed in pain and slowly left the arena.

  Navarre still had a chance at victory, but there was no sign of him. The next four riders bucked off, leaving one last rider, Brian “Pee Wee” Herman, and one last bull, Pandora’s Box. Navarre hustled back behind the chutes and explained he had to get something in the locker room. With that, he popped a false front tooth into his mouth and sheepishly explained he’d lost it not from a bull wreck but from tripping over the family dog. He wanted a full set of teeth just in case he had to do the postevent TV interview.

  Almost as soon as Pandora’s Box left the chute, he threw Herman to the ground, a vicious buck-off that suggested Little Yellow Jacket might have serious competition for the Bull of the Year award. But the night’s competition was over, with Navarre winning his first PBR event since 2001.

  Moraes had matched Navarre’s 90-point score while becoming only the second rider in the PBR to cover Kid Rock. But Navarre was the only rider to have stayed on all three of his bulls and, by virtue of his top cumulative score, won the event and a check for $27,132.

  Later, heading to the locker room after doing his TV interview with a full set of teeth and signing autographs, Navarre sorted through his equipment and his mixed feelings. He was thrilled with his victory but felt badly for his travel partner, Akin, who had bucked off both of his bulls. It led to the awkward situation in bull riding where winners went home with losers.

  Carrying his duffel bag packed with equipment over his shoulder, Navarre walked through a phalanx of riders who pounded him on the back in congratulations. He left the building with a smile. And so did Moraes.

  With his third-place finish, Moraes moved into first place in the overall standings. As only the Brazilian would say,“Holy macaroni!”

  STANDINGS

  1 Adriano Moraes 1,354 points

  2 Jody Newberry 908.5 points

  3 Mike Lee 879 points

  4 Reuben Geleynse 823 points

  5 Jason Bennett 803.5 points

  6 Corey Navarre 760 points

  7 Brian Herman 744.5 points

  8 Cody Hart 700 points

  9 Mike White 694 points

  10 B. J. Kramps 690.5 points

  FOUR

  RIDE AT YOUR OWN RISK

  Greensboro, North Carolina

  Saturday & Sunday, January 24 & 25, 2004

  In the front yard of a wooden house set back off a two-lane highway in Archdale, North Carolina, two young boys squealed as they rode a metal bucking barrel. One boy pushed and pulled while the other sat atop the barrel and gripped a rope as if riding a real bull. But both of the boys grew quiet when Jerome Davis emerged from the front door of the house.

  Davis eased his wheelchair down a wooden ramp and rolled across a dirt yard toward the passenger side of a truck. A friend opened the door and moved aside as Davis’s wife, Tiffany, positioned herself between the wheelchair and the truck. Bending over, she wrapped one arm around Davis’s legs, the other around his torso, and lifted his 5-foot-11-inch, 165-pound body into the front seat. The boys, who’d been playing on the bucking barrel, and their parents got into another car. They all were headed for the Greensboro Coliseum and for Tiffany and Jerome Davis, the most bittersweet weekend of the year—the PBR’s Jerome Davis Challenge.

  At the end of the introductions that night in the darkened Greensboro Coliseum, the spotlight turned away from the leading riders and shone near the center gate, illuminating a cowboy in a wheelchair. Before the PA announcer could finish his speech about grit and courage and heroism, the cheering fans rose to their feet. They knew who it was.

  Jerome Davis used to ride at the event named in his honor. Now, at age 31, he was raising bulls. Confined to a wheelchair, he was a stark reminder of the sport’s inherent dangers and a symbol of perseverance. Davis’s crooked grin and soft brown eyes belied his determination.

  In 1995, Davis took on all comers in the PRCA and beat them all, becoming the first bull rider from North Carolina and the first from east of the Mississippi River to win a world championship. No one was prouder than his mother, Pam. But as she stood in Greensboro Coliseum, with her son in his wheelchair and under the spotlight, she was terrified by the prospect of one of Jerome’s bulls paralyzing another rider. Jerome was aware of the irony of a paralyzed rider breeding potentially killer bulls, but he avoided talking about it. During the PBR’s 2-day event named in his honor, however, he would have no choice.

  In the first round of competition at the fifth stop of the season, Jody Newberry, looking for his 16th successful ride in the last 19 attempts, pinned his long legs against Blue Jack. Deep into the ride, Newberry fell off the right side, and Blue Jack’s hooves came down like teeth from a pitchfork. The hooves plunged and, like an act from God, only grazed the outside of Newberry’s legs as they sunk into the dirt. Rolling away as bullfighter Dennis Johnson came in for the save, Newberry scrambled to his feet and then checked the clock: 7.4 seconds. A fraction of a second had separated him from a qualified ride, but a fraction of space had saved him from serious injury.

  Aboard Moonshine, McBride made his suicide wrap and nodded for the gate. The bull bucked to the left, spinning like a top, while McBride, his free hand locked at a 90-degree angle, stayed in perfect position—that is, until the buzzer sounded. Dismounting to the right, McBride landed on his knees, and his head whipped forward. The force sent dirt spraying, but McBride was grinning when he reached his feet and saw he’d earned 85.5 points for the ride. Later in the round, Mike Lee shot o
ut of the gates on Dough Boy, and the bull stretched him like a rubber band. Back and forth Lee snapped, pliable enough to make the buzzer and score 83.5 points. Next up, Adriano Moraes on Black Hawk. The bull lunged out right, reversed directions, and worked into a tight spin. Moraes’s free hand chopped down like a tomahawk with every buck, and his right spur pounded the bull. As if that didn’t show enough control, Moraes dismountedwith a quick spin to the right and landed on his feet.

  The crowd had witnessed some of the best rides of the season. When the first night of competition ended, however, the most sought-after autograph was Jerome Davis’s. Fans pressed forward, leaning over the arena railing and holding out cowboy hats, posters, T-shirts, and programs for him to sign. A friend collected the items and set them atop a clipboard on Davis’s lap.

  With only partial use of his hands, Davis awkwardly gripped a felt-tip pen between his stiffened fingers and carefully scrawled his name on each item.“Smile, Jerome,” urged camera-toting fans, and each time he flashed that crooked grin.

  His life had changed forever on March 14, 1998 .Onthat day, entering the Tuff Hedeman Championship Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas, Davis led the PBR standings and in the first round had drawn Knock ’em Out John. Davis knew what to expect from the bull notorious for jerking back its head. Sure enough, seven jumps into the ride, Knock ’em Out John jerked back his head. But the power of the bull laid waste all precautions.

  Davis’s head slammed against the bull’s head. The blow knocked Davis unconscious. He landed on the dirt headfirst.

  Tiffany rushed behind the chutes as paramedics carried Davis out on a stretcher; and Tater Porter, a fellow rider, tried to calm her by saying it looked like Davis would be okay. He was wrong. X-rays showed Davis had severed his spinal cord and snapped two vertebrae, which left him paralyzed from the chest down.

  When Tiffany told Jerome the doctors said he would never walk again, he wanted to hear it for himself. “I don’t want to say never,” Jerome Davis remembers the doctor telling him. “I’ll give you a 1 percent chance.”