Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies, & Bull Riders Read online

  Nine riders had been injured so severely that they couldn’t compete the next week, and three of them ended up in the hospital. At one point, the line of riders needing treatment extended outside the sports medicine room. The fans here expected as much.

  This was no Jacksonville, Atlanta, or Anaheim, where Western wear was more fashion statement than part of the culture. This was “Cow-town,” and the locals took the nickname for Fort Worth as a compliment.What else would you call a city whose minor-league hockey team went by the nickname Brahmas?

  The main attraction was the old Stockyards, where cattle drivers used to stop for a visit at the saloon or the bordello, sell their cows at the slaughterhouse, or resume their cattle drives. For the tourists, twice a day they drove longhorn steer down Exchange Street, the animals’ hooves clop-clopping against the cobblestone as they made their lazy saunter. Things got rowdier when the locals squeezed into the coliseum and started downing $3 beers and $4 Jack and Cokes. No padded club seats or luxury boxes there. Just old-fashioned hard-back chairs, rickety steel rails, and the aroma of history.

  Built in 1936 by the Works Progress Administration—part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal program to create jobs and economic relief for those suffering through the Great Depression—the yellow brick building with the 200-foot tower between the two entrances stood proud and dignified but as weathered as an old rodeo cowboy.

  When Fort Worth rodeo fans heard of a good bull riding, they came in droves. They wanted thrilling rides and horrifying wrecks. They were sure to see both at the “Fort Worth Massacre.”

  The rash of injuries was easy to explain. Every year Hedeman assembled the country’s rankest bulls, the kind of bulls he’d loved to ride during his own storied career. The ranker the bull, the more dangerous and the tougher to ride. But the ranker the bull, the better the chance for a high score—the kind of scores one needed to win an event and a world championship. And no one had wanted to win more than Tuff Hedeman.

  Having grown up in the working-class section of El Paso, Texas, he was born Richard Hedeman and was the youngest of seven children and a snot-nosed runt. When he was 5 years old, a neighbor accidentally slammed Hedeman’s hand in the door of his pickup truck. He never screamed or cried.

  “Tough nut,” the man said.

  It was Tuff that stuck.

  As a young bull rider, he was far from the most talented. Other riders joked about his pigeon-toed walk, his Coke-bottle glasses, and his stained teeth. But what he lacked in ability or style, he compensated for by living up to his nickname.

  Studying the likes of Cody Lambert, Hedeman transformed himself into a promising rider; and as a high school senior in 1981, he landed a scholarship at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas. But the scholarship barely kept him above the poverty line. He was so broke he couldn’t pay to have his cowboy shirts starched for competitions like the rest of his teammates did. He did have a car, though it was a miracle it still ran. It was a 1964 Buick Electra given to him as a high school graduation gift.

  “I was poor as you could get,” recalled Hedeman, who, in joking about his financial status, quipped, “I couldn’t even pay attention.”

  To make ends meet, he worked part-time for a local rancher and earned $50 for the sunup-to-sundown shift. He occasionally borrowed money from teammates and friends and persuaded the college rodeo secretary to let him pay his entry fees after the event. Which meant he had to win.

  When his teammates were blowing off practice, he was at the arena, riding bulls. When his teammates were sleeping in, he was at the arena, riding bulls. A bad bull ride infuriated him—even if it was a teammate who got bucked off.

  “You gotta really want it,” Ed Vickers remembers Hedeman barking at him when the two rode together at Sul Ross. “If you don’t want it, you might as well quit.”

  When Sul Ross made the 1982 National Collegiate Finals, Cody Lambert won the all-around championship with the highest individual point total from all events, and his brother, Chuck, finished all-around runner-up. Hedeman competed in saddle bronc riding, steer wrestling, team roping, and bull riding. In the final round, he rode the standout bull Elmer, and Sul Ross won the national championship. Then Hedeman turned pro and attacked the circuit like a starving man would attack a buffet. It took him less than 2 years to qualify for his first NFR, and he showed up in Las Vegas a changed man.

  The Coke-bottle glasses were gone, replaced by contacts; the rumpled cowboy shirts were gone, replaced by starched new ones; and the stained yellow teeth were gone, replaced by capped teeth and a gleaming white smile. The girls began to notice Hedeman, and so did the world’s best riders.

  Traveling the country from one rodeo to the next, Hedeman rode in the same car with Frost and Lambert—more bull riding talent than anyone had ever seen in one vehicle. Invariably, one of the three won the bull riding event, and Hedeman’s bank account and reputation continued to grow.

  Trading in another clunker, he bought a used Cadillac. A few years later, he and fellow rider Jim Sharp bought a 310 Cessna twin-engine plane. Hedeman found himself riding in bull riding’s fast lane.

  Whether on a bull, in a rental car, or at the blackjack table, he loved to gamble. He drove rental cars over medians and on top of sidewalks. Once, at the state fairgrounds in Red Bluff, California, he and fellow rider Ted Nuce steered their rental cars onto a horse-racing track and pressed hard on the accelerator, dirt kicking up behind the cars as they raced around it. Another time in northern California, with six riders packed into a rental car, Hedeman sped down a mountain. Vickers screamed for Hedeman to let him out of the car.

  Hedeman just drove faster.

  Qualifying for the NFR and the PBR finals almost every year, he became a fixture in Las Vegas and the casinos. He liked to bet on horses and professional sports, but his game of choice was blackjack—high-stakes blackjack. Friends saw him win and lose more than $20,000 at a sitting. When he won, he was among the most likable customers, tipping the dealers. When he lost, he could turn as nasty as a 2,000-pound bull, ripping up cards and cursing the dealers.

  But by his midtwenties, Hedeman had beaten the long odds, the little snot-nosed runt having grown into a sturdy 5-foot-11-inch, 175-pound frame and a full-fledged rodeo star. Yet he still wasn’t the sport’s most popular rider. That distinction belonged to Lane Frost, Hedeman’s best friend.

  Frost had a lanky frame, tousled brown hair, and an undeniable charm. He might not have been the best bull rider ever—Hedeman and Sharp won more championships—but he was one of the few competitors to acknowledge the fans. He did it like no one else, with a two-handed wave after his rides.

  After rodeos, Frost not only signed autographs for all who requested them but also stopped and chatted with the fans as if they were personal friends. Hedeman and Lambert threatened to leave Frost behind. But they never did, in part because they knew Frost truly appreciated the fans.

  On July 30, 1989, the day of the championship round at the Cheyenne Frontier Days, the sky was gray, the arena was muddy, and the grandstands were packed. Heading into the short-go, Frost was in second place and drew a bull named Takin’ Care of Business. He rode the bull until the 8-second buzzer, let go of the bull rope, and rolled off the bull’s hindquarters. The bull pivoted and circled behind Frost. The attack took less than 10 seconds.

  Frost tried to scramble away, but his boots stuck in the ankle-deep mud, and the bull drove into Frost’s back and knocked him to the ground. Frost curled up into a ball. But the bull drove his right horn into Frost’s left side. When the bullfighters finally waved away the bull, Frost got to his feet and motioned for help.

  Then he collapsed.

  Soon after arriving at Memorial Hospital late that afternoon, Lane Frost was pronounced dead.

  At his funeral, 1,200 people squeezed into the pews at the First Baptist Church in Atoka, Oklahoma. Others packed into church classrooms to watch the service on TV monitors; and when there was no room left, the o
thers gathered on the church’s front lawn. The Daily Oklahoman newspaper estimated that 3,500 people attended, this outpouring for the same rider who earlier in his career remarked that it “would be neat” if someone ever asked for his autograph.

  Four months after Frost died in the bullring in 1989, Hedeman, with thoughts of his best friend on his mind, won his second world bull riding championship. He also named his first son Robert Lane. Five years later, New Line Cinema released Eight Seconds, a movie about Frost’s life starring Luke Perry, with Hedeman and Lambert two other featured characters. Though not a huge commercial or critical success, the film struck a chord with Frost’s legion of fans and remains the most-watched bull riding film ever.

  With Frost gone, Hedeman became the sport’s number one ambassador.After each of the Bullnanza events in Guthrie, organizers held an open-bar party on the third floor of the arena. Riders beat a hasty retreat to the party as soon as the event ended, leaving but one rider in the arena.

  “Pig,” they shouted out from the third-floor balcony.

  Fans knew him as Tuff, but his friends called him Pig. “Because he’s a pig,” Jim Sharp once explained.

  “Pig!”

  Hedeman waved them off. Signing autographs and posing for pictures, he worked the line of fans until every request was obliged. Once, with Hedeman still signing autographs, A. G. Meyers, who handled promotions for the Bullnanza events, shouted for the arena workers to cut off the lights. Hedeman shouted back. “Tell A.G. to send me a bill, because we’re not cutting off the lights,” he said, refusing to leave until every autograph had been signed.

  The lights stayed on.

  Hedeman wasn’t warm and cuddly like Frost and never would be. But the fans admired him—not just because he’d won the PRCA world championship in 1986, 1989, and 1991 and the PBR championship in 1995 but also because the son of a bitch rode every rank bull out there. In fact, Hedeman and one of the toughest bulls in rodeo history squared off in one of the most memorable rides ever.

  Las Vegas, 1995. Hedeman already had clinched the PBR championship, but no one left the building. The crowd waited for Hedeman’s highly anticipated final ride: Tuff versus Bodacious.

  Bodacious had his own agent and promoter, and the bull had spawned an empire of videotapes, merchandise, even apparel. He’d been featured in Penthouse and GQ, and although his birth certificate said “J31,” everyone in the world of rodeo knew him as Bodacious. They also knew him as the world’s baddest of badasses—an ornery cream-colored, cowboy-eviscerating bull. Before the last round of the 1995 PBR finals, riders had boarded the bull 135 times during his 4 years of competition, and only six of them had stayed on for the required 8 seconds. Six! Ninety-five percent of them failed—mere mortals playing a fool’s game atop a 2,000-pound beast.

  Among those six men who had succeeded in riding Bodacious was Hedeman. And in the final round of the 1995 finals, the two got reacquainted. Hedeman climbed into the chute and settled onto the bull. He pulled his bull rope tight and called for the gate, and out they soared.

  On his third jump, Bodacious jerked back his head. The force drove Hedeman forward. His face smashed against the bull’s head. Twisting sideways, bouncing off the bull’s back, Hedeman crashed to the dirt.

  He got back on his feet without assistance and left the arena with blood pouring from his disfigured face. The gold-buckle ceremony would have to wait; Hedeman was on his way to the hospital.

  Doctors performed more than 10 hours of reconstructive facial surgery. For weeks, with his jaw wired shut, Hedeman ate his meals through a straw. He lost more than 20 pounds. But 6 weeks after the wreck, Hedeman showed up at the NFR. He showed up looking thin, tired, and weak but carrying his equipment bag. He was there to compete.

  In the eighth round, Hedeman checked the draw. His worst nightmare. He’d drawn Bodacious. Hedeman, without his neck brace, returned to the arena.

  With other riders standing behind the chutes, he climbed atop the bull that had ravaged his face. When the gate opened, Hedeman held on to the back of the chute and let the bull go out solo. As Bodacious ran off, Hedeman tipped his hat toward the bull.

  On his next trip, Bodacious knocked out yet another rider. His owner, Sammy Andrews, immediately retired the 7-year-old champion bull.

  A year after Hedeman’s wreck, bones still jutted out from Hedeman’s face. He underwent another reconstructive surgery and never looked quite the same as he had before the wreck, even with six titanium plates holding his face together. But he was the same old Tuff—gambling, abusing rental cars, and riding bulls—until 1998, when a neck injury forced him to retire.

  He settled into a house in Morgan Mill, Texas, with his wife, Tracy, and their two young boys and prepared for life after bull riding. Drawn to the spotlight, he took a job as a TV commentator for PBR broadcasts and remained the most marketable bull rider in rodeo—and one of the best paid.

  His job as PBR president, which required that he attend every BFTS stop and sign autographs, paid him more than $100,000 a year. His TV gig paid him about $100,000. He took in tens of thousands of dollars more from endorsement deals with Bud Light and a handful of other companies, not to mention his annual bull riding event in Fort Worth and a BFTS event in Bossier City that he copromoted with the PBR and Ron Pack, Hedeman’s close friend and business adviser.

  To many of the young PBR riders,Hedeman was a hero and an after-hours ringleader. At 41, he was trim, with a full head of light brown hair and bangs framing his handsome face. He liked to join the other riders at the after-event parties and proved to be a loyal supporter of his highest-paying corporate sponsor—Bud Light. He held the beer bottles with the same ease and frequency that he’d held a bull rope.

  After a welcome dinner held the night before the Tuff Hedeman Championship Challenge began, he ushered the men onto a chartered bus. It was loaded with liquor and strippers. The 30-minute bus ride ended at New Orleans Nights, an upscale gentlemen’s club in Fort Worth. Clutching a stack of $20 bills, he worked the strip club like a master of ceremonies, peeling the twenties off his stack and buying lap dances for his guests. Maybe it was the main reason riders annually voted the Tuff Hedeman Championship Challenge the PBR’s best event. Or maybe it was the ferocious bulls.

  Ten minutes after Johnson was taken out of the arena, an announcement came over the PA system: “Ladies and gentlemen, we have an update on Ross Johnson. The doctor asked him where he was, and he replied, ‘Fort Worth.’ ”

  Ross Johnson was alive! Cheers filled the arena. But the 24-year-old rider from Alvord, Texas, wasn’t out of danger. His eyes fluttered as he lay still on an examination table inside the sports medicine room. Tears streamed down Abby Johnson’s face as she gently stroked her husband’s stomach. “You’re a tough son of a gun,” said Johnson’s father, Bobby.

  Tandy Freeman, who directed the medical team for the PBR, hovered over Johnson where three padded examination tables were sardined. Balding at age 46, Freeman had an impassive face and exuded a calm that put the riders at ease. “The first rule when you’re in an emergency situation: Check your own pulse,” Freeman liked to say. His own pulse was reptilian.

  He had the same drawl as many of the riders, plus the requisite boots, jeans, and Western shirt that completed the cowboy look. But he was tall, with a slight paunch, and ill equipped to ride a bull. He never had.

  An orthopedic surgeon based in Dallas, he had built his practice rebuilding shoulders, elbows, legs, knees, and ankles hit by bulls. At each of the PBR’s 29 weekend events, Freeman and his staff of trainers—Rich Blyn, Peter Wang, and Tony Marek—brought four trunks filled with medical supplies, enough to run a small emergency room. At the events, if Freeman wasn’t in the sports medicine room, he could be found sitting on the corner of the chutes, holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee and waiting for the inevitable. One in every 15 bull rides resulted in a new injury requiring some form of treatment. As Freeman once said, “It’s not if you’ll get hurt, but when and how bad.”r />
  That line became the mantra of the PBR.

  Competing with pain or injuries was more than a badge of honor for the riders. It was the only way to get paid. There were no guaranteed checks other than a modest appearance fee. And that provided incentive to ride with a broken rib, a separated shoulder, or a partially collapsed lung—all of which Freeman had seen.

  Bull riding was a brutal sport, and the 2004 season had been no exception. Twelve events into the season, Freeman and his staff had treated riders for the following injuries: broken cheekbone, broken eye socket, broken collarbone, broken shoulder blade, torn groin muscle, two broken ribs, four lacerated chins, 15 concussions, and too many strains, bumps, and bruises to count. Over the course of the season, they expected to go through more than 2,000 pounds of ice to reduce swelling; 425 cases of tape to wrap knees, hands, wrists, ankles, and fingers; and 150 syringes. HealthSouth and the PBR paid the $250,000 cost, which included salaries for the three trainers. Other than getting reimbursed for travel expenses, Freeman worked pro bono.

  Once upon a time, there was no sports medicine room, no orthopedic surgeon, and no athletic trainers. Riders had been lucky to have an ambulance on hand. In those days riders treated their own injuries with a handful of aspirin, a 12-pack of beer, and occasionally something stronger—phenylbutazone, commonly known as bute, an anti-inflammatory drug given to injured horses. Over the counter, under the counter, the riders would take what they could get. They distrusted most doctors, especially the ones who advised them to give up bull riding. That, thought the riders, was like someone telling the doctor to give up medicine. So they stuck with the aspirin and beer as their primary form of treatment. But that began to change in the late 1970s.