Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies, & Bull Riders Read online

  “That’s all I need,” Davis replied.

  There was a reason no one east of the Mississippi River had won a world bull riding championship before Davis did. Most kids in North Carolina grew up dreaming of wearing the powder blue basketball uniform of the Tar Heels or getting behind the wheel of a stock car, not wearing cowboy boots with spurs or getting on top of a bull.

  Though Davis’s family grew up riding horses, most of what he learned about rodeo came from watching the sport on TV. In 1991, competing in bareback, saddle bronc, and bull riding as a high school senior, he finished runner-up for the all-around title at the national high school finals. He drew scholarship offers from the top rodeo programs in the country and settled on Odessa Junior College in Texas, where as a freshman he won the 1992 national collegiate bull riding championship. Just 3 days later, he entered a pro bull riding event in Reno and drew Orange Pop, a bull he knew nothing about—and a bull he’d never forget. Orange Pop slung Davis over its head, crushed his rib cage, broke his collarbone, and punctured his lung. When Davis’s mother arrived at the hospital in Reno, she found her son hooked up to tubes. Let this be the final bull ride, she thought to herself; yet when she spoke to her son, something else came out of her mouth.

  “Jerome, I don’t know what your plans are,” she remembers saying. “But I’m going to tell you this: It’s going to take more than any Orange Pop to keep you down.”

  It wasn’t long before Jerome Davis returned to bull riding.

  With the PBR still in its infancy, he and other top bull riders focused on the PRCA. He finished fifth in the world in 1993 and third in ’94, and in ’95 won it all—the world championship and the gold buckle. As the PBR’s purses and stature grew, he turned his attention to the upstart tour and early in the 1998 season emerged as a top contender for the title. Knock ’em Out John ended those hopes and presented Davis with new challenges.

  Seven months after he returned home from the hospital, Tiffany and three friends lifted him onto the specially made saddle so he could ride his horse around his property. With Jerome on the wide leather saddle with the high back, his mother blinked back tears as her son slowly rode across a pasture. A month later Davis called his family with surprise news: He and Tiffany, then his longtime girlfriend, had eloped and gotten married. For the newlyweds, no wedding vow rang truer than “for better or for worse.”

  Few things are as difficult as riding a bull. One of them is for a bull rider to find affordable health insurance. At the time of the accident, Davis had no personal insurance, nothing but the $20,000 policy the PBR carries for each rider at every event. By the end of the first night in the hospital, Davis’s insurance benefits had run out. Like other paralyzed riders, he leaned on the rodeo community to bail him out. The PBR, fellow riders, and a few prominent NASCAR drivers helped raise almost $500,000; yet ultimately Davis’s medical bills approached $1 million.

  One day the Archdale sheriff knocked on Davis’s front door and handed Davis a letter. It was a warning. Unless the hospital bills were paid, the letter explained, the Davises’ home and assets could be seized.

  The couple hired a lawyer. Negotiations began.

  The hospital agreed to take roughly $500,000. Thanks to the fund-raising, that meant Jerome still had money left from his past winnings. He used some of the money to start a new career raising bulls, but his immediate challenge was getting through the day. In the mornings he struggled to the edge of the bed, gritted his teeth, and, emitting small grunts, wheeled himself into the shower. There he sat under steaming water that loosened his muscles.

  As the months passed, Davis stunned his family by what he’d learned to do, such as operate a tractor with handheld gears that allowed him to mow the grass and bale hay on his grandfather’s old 120-acre dairy farm, on which Jerome and Tiffany lived. He also oversaw the upkeep of 150 cows, started a bull-breeding program, and helped design a rodeo arena built on the farm.

  In addition to the Jerome Davis Challenge—in which Davis had a financial stake—the PBR gave him an event on the Challenger Tour, the PBR’s minor league circuit, to be held in Davis’s new arena. The inaugural event drew many of the PBR’s star riders, who came to honor Davis; and before the first-day competition began, a semitruck pulled up to that wooden house off the two-lane highway in Archdale. Two men unloaded four boxes and a huge platform. Riders and family members wondered what it was. But Jerome Davis knew.

  It was a set of handrails he’d ordered, the apparatus he planned to use to learn how to walk again. J. W. Hart and Justin McBride helped set up the handrails; and the next day, with Tiffany steadying her husband and his friend Rob Smets locking his knees, Davis grabbed the handrails and stood with assistance for the first time since his accident. He was willing to try anything in his quest to walk again and once sought information on a faith healer who worked with paraplegics.

  Oftentimes, Jerome invited young riders to his ranch to test his bulls. Sitting in the far end of the arena in his wheelchair, he studied the animals as they bucked, and he offered the young riders advice. On Sunday nights, when friends passed the farmhouse and saw the den light on, they knew Davis was there, watching the televised PBR events. In his wheelchair, he’d sway side to side as if riding the bulls himself.

  The PBR prize money had skyrocketed since Davis’s accident; and in June 2003, he watched the special NBC-televised event during which Shivers rode Little Yellow Jacket for a shot at $1 million. “I wonder how a paralyzed man could ride,” he joked at the time. “For a million dollars, I’d love to figure out how.”

  On that cold and snowy weekend of the 2004 Jerome Davis Challenge,Greensboro officials blamed the icy roads for dozens of accidents. That wasn’t counting the wrecks at the Jerome Davis Challenge.

  From his pens in Archdale to the Greensboro Coliseum, Davis hauled a string of his most fearsome bulls, including Wicked Charlie. On day 2 of the event, Cody Hart, a thick 25-year-old who’d won the 1999 PBR championship, drew the bull. Davis was eager to see the matchup. With a front-row view, Davis watched as the chute gate opened and Hart and Wicked Charlie burst out.

  The ride lasted 5 seconds.

  As Hart hit the ground, the bull rope wrapped around his boot and jerked him underneath Wicked Charlie. Down came the bull’s hooves. The first one landed on Hart’s right knee; the next crushed Hart’s stomach.

  Unhooked, Hart ran for the side fence, reached for the top rail, and slumped to the ground. He motioned for help, and the sports medicine team rushed out. The crowd watched in silence.

  For 3 long minutes, the trainers and orthopedic surgeon huddled around Hart. The most spectacular wrecks scared the fans. But wrecks like these, resulting in internal injuries, could be far worse. Finally, with assistance, Hart rose to his feet and left the arena.

  NBC’s cameras were rolling. A national audience was waiting. The show went on.

  While fans might have been worried about Hart, they were puzzled with Chris Shivers. After falling off Vegas on day 1, Shivers bucked off Peacemaker on day 2, marking the fifth straight time he’d failed to stay on a bull for 8 seconds.

  On his way to the 2003 title, Shivers had ridden 55.7 percent of his bulls. But this season, in 14 attempts, he was riding 35.7 percent and had gotten bucked off each of the three times he’d made the championship round. Already quiet, Shivers grew even more reticent as his slump deepened and the whispers started.

  What’s wrong with Shivers? Is he hurt? Is he distracted? Is he too content after winning the $1 million to give his best? There were more questions than answers as the Jerome Davis Challenge headed into the championship round.

  Little Yellow Jacket continued his rampage, tossing Craig Sasse to the ground and posting the high mark among all 15 short-go bulls. Bo Howdy, with Moraes aboard, bucked as if on a trampoline. Moraes just soared with the bull and scored 86 points on his ninth qualified ride in 11 attempts that season. But Reuben Geleynse, a soft-spoken Canadian, had taken the overall lead with an 86.5-point rid
e on Coyote; and the competition came down to two more riders: Brent Vincent of Sulphur, Louisiana, and McBride.

  Neon Nights, with McBride aboard, lurched out of the chute and then bucked back in. Catching a back hoof on the gates, the bull unhooked himself with another buck and sent McBride to the ground. But the judges ruled McBride had gotten fouled and awarded him a reride. In position to snatch the victory with a qualified score on Shock and Awe, Vincent experienced awe and shock. He slapped the bull with his free hand a fraction of a second before the buzzer sounded. Then came McBride’s reride on massive Cheylo. There was no need to pull out the scale to see the bull weighed close to 2,000 pounds, and McBride needed to ride him for 85 points to win the event.

  For all Cheylo’s strength, he couldn’t buck fast enough to shed McBride. Nor could McBride look flashy enough to wow the judges. He earned 84.5 points, matching Geleynse’s three-round total of 255.5 points for a share of the victory, and in the overall standings moved past Lee and into second place behind Moraes.

  After the event ended, Jerome Davis signed autographs for a half hour before steering his wheelchair out of the arena. Near the exit, he intersected paths with Cody Hart, who on Davis’s bull, Wicked Charlie, had suffered a bruised sternum, a cracked rib, torn ligaments in his right knee, and a pulled hamstring.

  “You all right?” Davis asked.

  “Yeah. But if he’d stepped anywhere else than where he did, he probably would have killed me.”

  “How you feel?”

  “Like shit,” Hart said. “Twenty-one hundred pounds is a lot of weight on you.”

  STANDINGS

  1 Adriano Moraes 2,071 points

  2 Justin McBride 1,927 points

  3 Reuben Geleynse 1,582 points

  4 Mike White 1,562 points

  5 Mike Lee 1,518.5 points

  6 Luke Snyder 1,165.5 points

  7 Jody Newberry 1,162 points

  8 Jason Bennett 1,158 points

  9 Dan Henricks 1,096.5 points

  10 B. J. Kramps 1,040.5 points

  FIVE

  DOWN GOES THE CHAMP

  Atlanta, Georgia

  Saturday, February 7, 2004

  Like the snap of a broken shoulder blade, the news reverberated all the way from south Florida. Less than 24 hours earlier, at the PBR’s seventh stop, a bull named Hot Rod Harry had bucked off Chris Shivers in Tampa, Florida, and turned him into arena carpet. The impact of the stomping bull broke Shivers’s right shoulder blade, an injury that would require surgery. Since he’d need 8 weeks of rehabilitation anyway, he opted for an additional surgery to take care of a nagging hip problem. All in all, he suddenly was facing a 5-month recuperation period.

  If there was such a thing as a good time to get stomped by a bull and break a shoulder blade, this was it. The time off gave Shivers a chance to rest and refuel. But it also virtually ended his chances that season of winning an unprecedented third title. Someone else’s quest looked in jeopardy, too.

  Saturday night in Atlanta, Adriano Moraes limped into the Georgia Dome for the eighth stop on the PBR tour. His powerful build and cheerful disposition belied his physical condition. Moraes was in serious pain. Several of his fingers tingled and occasionally went numb, the result of arthritis and nerve damage in his arms. His “good” arm, the right one, was misshapen from where he’d torn his triceps—and he wore a heavy brace on his left elbow, which was destabilized by ligament and nerve damage. He also competed with torn ligaments and torn cartilage in his right knee.

  Tandy Freeman, the PBR’s orthopedic surgeon, had recommended surgery for the knee and left elbow. But Moraes declined, and Freeman understood why: Time recuperating meant time away from bull riding; and at 33 years old, Moraes knew his window of opportunity for winning a third PBR championship was closing. So as the 2004 season approached, he decided to ride in pain—and it only got worse.

  In the championship round of the Tampa Bay Open, while dismounting a bull, Moraes sprained his left knee. Freeman listed him as questionable for the Atlanta Classic at the Georgia Dome, yet there was no question Moraes would ride if he was physically able. For one, contenders were gaining ground. In Tampa, Justin McBride earned his second victory in 4 weeks and moved past Mike Lee.

  When Moraes arrived at the Georgia Dome, he headed straight for the sports medicine room and propped himself onto an examination table. Freeman walked over and looked at the rider’s swollen left knee, peeled open a sealed package, and attached a syringe to an 18-gauge needle. Inserting the needle into the side of Moraes’s left knee, Freeman pulled back the syringe as it filled up with bloody fluid. After Freeman drained 60 cubic centimeters of fluid, Moraes eased himself off the table, pronounced himself fit to ride, and hobbled toward the locker room like an old man. In fact, he looked creakier than the rider they called “Grandpa.”

  At 5 feet 5 inches and 145 pounds, Gary “Grandpa” Richard, one of the few black riders to have reached the top rung of the PBR, appeared as fit and trim as any other rider on tour. His full head of black hair was free of gray. But the creases around his mouth, deepening on his dark, weathered face when he smiled, gave away his age. Once, they called him the Houston Solution, referring to his hometown of Houston, Texas. But in recent years, they started calling him “Grandpa”—partly because he had three grandchildren and partly because at 41 he was the oldest rider on tour. Too old, some declared in April 2003.

  That year, in a matter of three days, Richard not only lost his spot on tour, but also a $20,000-a-year maintenance job with the Houston school system, which helped him support his six children and grandchildren. Many suspected it was the last time Richard would compete on the PBR’s top tier. Richard’s father hoped it was the last time his son would compete, period. He worried that Gary’s skills were deteriorating with age and made him vulnerable to a catastrophic injury.

  But before the 2004 season, Gary had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee. He was pain-free for the first time in years. And now here he was, sitting in front of his locker in the Georgia Dome and back among the PBR’s top 45 riders. He looked around the room.

  “This is the best of the best,” he said. “When you’re here, you’re at the top of your game.”

  Dressing in a far corner of the room, Richard got ready next to Brian Wooley, a rider from Texas who was nearly 20 years younger than “Grandpa.” But as if to dispel any stereotypes, Richard said, “I feel like I’m 21 years old again. Like Tony the Tiger. That’s how I feel, grrrreat!”

  Yet he made concessions to age. Spraying his right leg with Tuff-Skin, he wrapped adhesive tape from the top of his thigh to the bottom of his calf. Despite the off-season knee surgery, he still was competing without the posterior cruciate ligament he’d torn years ago. Changing into his riding gear, Richard found himself amidst the banter and camaraderie of the locker room, where riders swarmed a Copenhagen rep passing out free cans of snuff.

  Then Richard found out he’d drawn a first-round bull named Land Shark, a dangerous head-slinger. “Yuck,” he said before heading to the pens to size up the bull. About an hour later, during introductions, Richard sized up the crowd—20,000 strong.

  Scheduled to ride second, he climbed into the chutes and settled on his bull. The bull looked more like Drunken Catfish than Land Shark. He took three weak jumps, dropped to his knees, and toppled over on his right side. Unhurt, Gary rose to his feet knowing he had an automatic reride—awarded to a rider when the judges determine a bull has performed below par. But a below-par performance was unlikely from Richard’s reride bull, Ninja.

  In 12 attempts, only six riders had ridden Ninja for 8 seconds, with those six scoring an average of 88 points. If Richard matched that average score, he’d be all but guaranteed a spot in the championship round. Midway through the first round, blinking nervously, Richard settled atop Ninja. He tightened the rope. “Go,” he said, and the chute swung open.

  One jump. Two jumps. Three jumps. Four jumps and . . .

  Off fell Richar
d, hitting the dirt 3.3 seconds shy of the buzzer. He retrieved his bull rope and headed back to the locker room muttering, “I overrode him.”

  Standing in front of his locker, Richard tossed his riding glove, bull rope, vest, and chaps into a heap. He stared at the equipment.

  “Dadgummit,” he said. “Kind of bull you need. Just overrode him. I knew better.”

  Richard had blown a chance to pick up good money. But the man who ran the PBR wasn’t about to blow his chance to secure some valuable publicity.

  Randy Bernard, the PBR’s CEO and ultimate schmoozer, spentmuch of the night chatting up Rudy Martzke, the sports TV columnist for USA Today, who along with his wife took in the show from front-row seats, compliments of the PBR. Bernard made sure to introduce Martzke to his good friend Bernie Taupin, the famous songwriter who’d written many of Elton John’s lyrics. He also introduced Martzke to Moraes. Hook Martzke on the sport, Bernard thought, and maybe the PBR would get some pub in USA Today. Martzke looked like he was loving it, and what wasn’t to love?

  In the championship round, Ross Coleman rode Cripple Creek Slick Willy for 91 points and took the lead. Cauy Hudson of Elm Creek, Nebraska, was in second, two points back; and Mike Lee was in third, 3.5 points behind Coleman. It was a familiar and bittersweet spot for Lee. In all seven of the season’s events, he’d been in the money, and three times in the top five. But he’d failed to win an event. Some riders said Lee’s effortless style had cost him points, while others said he simply hadn’t drawn the right bulls for a victory. But Lee’s father, Dennis, and Moraes noticed something else. Both had watched Lee closely, and the young rider was getting ahead of the bulls. He was anticipating with uncanny skill but reacting too quickly to the bulls’ moves. It was a sign of phenomenal ability but also a sign of impatience and inexperience. While Lee had quicker reflexes and more agility than Moraes, the Brazilian drew on the wisdom of a 15-year riding career in knowing how to stay in rhythm with the bull’s speed and when to react. If a rider got too far behind the bull’s pace, he slipped into the bull’s power zone. If he got too far ahead, he moved into empty space and tumbled off the bull.