The cowboy was just trying to tie a knot.
Cody Ohl ties knots slicker than a seaman. He knows knots better than a Boy Scout. He is the world-champion calf roper and he rides his horse out of the gate, ropes a calf, wrestles it down and cinches three legs together faster than the world record in the 100-meter dash.
This time was different. Ohl looped the rope over the 250-pound calf’s neck cleanly. Then as he dismounted with a leap, his right knee exploded. Ohl couldn’t run to the animal, so he heaved his body through the dirt, used a pocketknife to snip the long rope attached to his saddle, took the calf down by grabbing its leg, with his own sore leg trailing, and then pinned the animal.
The 17,000 witnesses crammed into the Thomas and Mack Center stood, beating their hands together, whistling, stomping their feet, astonished by the drama.
They thought they had seen it all in 43 years of the National Finals Rodeo, but no one could remember seeing this kind of try, as cowboys call the inner drive that translates into refuse-to-quit. It was adrenaline, Ohl said later, and he thought the World All-Around Champion cowboy title just might come down to tying that knot.
It took him 40.9 seconds–some of the longest moments of his life–and when he tied his bow Ohl rolled over on his back, grimaced in agony and, with chest heaving, covered his eyes and forehead with his arms. Medics carried him off on a stretcher.
His season began with a broken heart. It ended with a broken knee. Cody Ohl of Stephenville, Texas, dreamed only of becoming a world champion. But he became a folk hero too.
The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association National Finals Rodeo is 10 days of barebacks and sore backs, of snorting bulls and aching butts, of broncs that decline to be tamed and roping that doesn’t seem possible, except as performed by stunt men in Clint Eastwood movies. Rodeo has a season that lasts as long as the calendar, and cowboys and cowgirls spend the entire year seeking an invitation to Las Vegas each December by ranking in the top 15 of their events. Of the thousands who tried, 117 made it. This year $4.6 million was at stake, making it the richest rodeo of all time.
Champions were crowned in bareback riding, steer wrestling, team roping, saddle-bronc riding, calf roping, barrel racing and bull riding. The most coveted title is the all-around, won by a competitor combining the largest earnings in two events.
“I’m here to win steer wrestling,” proclaimed Cash Myers of Athens, Texas, who is living proof that rodeo runs in the blood and spans the generations.
Father Butch was a world-champion calf roper and named his children Rope, Tygh and Cash. Rope won the steer wrestling with holds likely to attract WWF recruiters. Cash, 21, placed seventh in the all-around, his distinctive burnt-orange shirt under a white cowboy hat advertising his presence from afar. He was a football quarterback and a basketball point guard in high school and, at 6 feet 2 inches and 220 pounds, has the size to play either in college, but not the inclination.
“School wasn’t for me,” Cash Myers said.
Rodeo is for him, and he might not visit his home south of Dallas between May and September. Cowboys can invest 100,000 miles in 100 rodeos to accumulate rankings points. And in rodeo, points are measured in dollars and cents. You may flash the prized belt buckle, but it won’t pay the bills. There is no guaranteed money. Showing up counts, but putting up matters most.
“You work all year to get here,” Bud Longbrake said. “If you get hurt even a little bit, you can’t afford it.”
Longbrake, 39, a saddle-bronc rider from Dupree, S.D., hurt a lot. Only the toothpick he always swishes around in his mouth seemed in place as he coped with an injured ankle, shoulder and knee.
It’s a hard game. Gas, food and motel costs mount up, and so does boredom, riding long hours on the open roads that connect the dusty, prairie-town outdoor arenas and the big-city, indoor all-purpose halls. Family is usually a phone call away, and if you don’t stay aboard a 1,400-pound bucking horse or 2,000-pound bull for eight seconds, you limp away without covering the cost of that comforting call.
You’ve got to ride to the horn in saddle-bronc riding, bareback riding, and bull riding. All animals with attitude, they have been described as “horses you can’t ride and cows you can’t milk.” Eight seconds is a blur and it is an eternity, but the horn sounds sweeter than a symphony.
“After a bad ride even, it’s a good sound,” Longbrake said.
Longbrake has friendly blue eyes and a genial smile and is proud to be a rare world-class, Native American cowboy. He wore a black felt hat, and the eagle feather he stuck in the band never came free. Lakota Sioux presented it to him 11 years ago, when they named him “Wild Horse Boy.”
There were 10 go-rounds in Vegas, paying day money down to sixth place. Those who made the eight seconds were graded on a 100-point scale: 50 for the animal’s spirit and 50 for the rider’s. Strict judging meant go-rounds were won with totals in the 80s.
Each daily winner collected $13,522, and the last money spot paid something more than $2,000. While big-time team-sport athletes get paid millions of dollars, no rodeo star has ever won $300,000 in a season. That’s less than what an NBA benchwarmer makes.
The aching Longbrake never placed in 10 rides. This time the wild horses got the better of him.
Grounded in the Old West
Rodeo’s roots stretch back to the myth-making days of the Old West. The pro rodeo association says the first rodeo took place in 1865. After herding cattle through the dust and mending fences on the ranch, cowboys boasted about who could ride the best. They probably were drinking amber liquid from a flask when the initial challenge was delivered.
This is one sport in which fans and participants wear the same uniforms. Cowboy hats shaped to the skull, blue jeans shaped to the butt, and checked or striped shirts molded to the chest. “We’ve got some obligation to keep the Western lifestyle alive,” Pro Rodeo Commissioner Steve Hatchell said.
All but four of the 117 qualifiers list hometowns west of the Mississippi River, places like Hockley, Texas, and Camp Crook, S.D., towns it takes a magnifying glass to see on a map.
Would a craggy-faced cowpoke transported by time machine from the 19th Century recognize what these cowboys do? Yep. But would he recognize the trappings of 2001 rodeo?
“You’re definitely going to see some Old West,” said Charmayne James, 31, of Athens, Texas, a 10-time world champion barrel racer and third this year with $129,269 in earnings in the only event for women. “It’s kind of the Old West with a little New Age. Things have to progress.”
James, with blond hair, a winning smile and hip-hugging jeans, plays herself in a Wrangler jeans TV commercial and has the type of face Hatchell wants to stamp on this new age of rodeo.
Hatchell was the commissioner of the old Southwest Conference and commissioner of the newer Big 12. He may wear his black cowboy hat, shiny belt buckle and dead-animal-skin boots well now, but three years ago when he was hired, Hatchell joked that all of those essential elements were rented.
Pro Rodeo has made a cowboy out of him and he is trying to make pro rodeo the sport of the future. His mission is marketing. There is no swagger or overbearing smugness in his vocabulary, just a matter-of-fact belief that pro rodeo is the next NASCAR.
Rodeo has no trouble selling tickets. The Colorado Springs-based PRCA sanctions 700 rodeos a year in 42 states and four Canadian provinces and draws about 22 million fans. Even the tiniest rodeo event counts for qualifying. And, indeed, the rodeo goes to Peoria.
This National Finals Rodeo in December sold out the Thomas and Mack last February. That’s 17,000 tickets for 10 nights at $31 to $50. Another 500 standing-room tickets were sold each night. Also, more than 25 casinos paid more than $3,000 each for a closed-circuit feed. The core audience is solid, but Hatchell wants to lasso mainstream America.
Finals sessions concluded in a crisp 2 1/4 hours. When Hatchell took over, rodeo was on television 46 hours a year. In 2001 it has topped 130 hours, with all 10 days of the finals on ESPN2 or ESPN. The cable company pays no rights fees–pro rodeo buys the time and sells ads. Hatchell’s philosophy: Water the crop now and it will provide later.
“The goal has been growth,” Hatchell said.
Cowboys want to see their wages grow. During these championships, Joe Beaver, 36, of Huntsville, Texas, the 2000 all-around champion, set a career earnings record of more than $2 million. “I’m tickled to death to be the all-time leader,” he said.
It took him 17 seasons. Beaver, who has battered knees, laughed heartily when asked if he had spent it all on adhesive tape. Beaver wasn’t laughing when he said he hopes the cowboy who breaks his record does it twice as fast.
`Just wanted to be a cowboy’
It registered 7.7 on the Richter scale as a bull named Buff Daddy shook, snorted and rumbled. Determined to heave Mike Moore into the mezzanine, it demonstrated why bulls are the orneriest creatures in rodeo. Grimly, Moore hung on, gripping the bull rope with one hand, flailing wildly with the other, the pink fringe on his chaps flapping.
The horn blared and Moore jumped free, then danced with joy. He flung his black hat like a Frisbee and pointed his index fingers at the crowd. Bang, bang.
Moore, 28, might be the least likely top-caliber cowboy in the land. He is black in a sport with a limited number of blacks. His hair is styled in cornrows while others wear crewcuts. And he grew up in Kankakee. The last time Illinois was considered the Old West, Benjamin Franklin was signing the Declaration of Independence, not posing for pictures on $100 bills.
Moore, who majored in elementary education at Wyoming, lives in Ft. Collins, Colo. He never aspired to be a Chicago Bull, just a Chicago bull rider.
“I just wanted to be a cowboy,” Moore said. “When I got on my first bull, I knew it was what I wanted to do. It was an awesome thrill.”
Any bull ride is thrilling enough to loosen fillings, but Moore said it’s over so fast there’s no time to think.
“If you think, you’re late, and if you’re late, you’re bucked off,” he said.
The night before autographing photos of himself at a public appearance, Moore was pitched into the arena’s perimeter fencing.
“It’s pretty obvious it’s dangerous every time you get on,” Moore said.
You can double-check that with Fred Boettcher, like Moore a rare ranked bull rider from the Midwest. Boettcher, 26, lives in Tomah, Wis., and except for Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre, his heroes have always been bull riders.
Boettcher wore a white bandage on his chin, covering eight stitches he needed from an incident in an early go-round. A bull pulled him down and nicked him with a horn. Better than the time he needed steel plates in his forehead after a bull hit him.
“A lot of it’s just grit,” Boettcher said as he spit tobacco juice into a trash bin. “But there’s a finesse to it, like a gymnastics routine. You just watch their moves. You’re dancing with him. When you get out of time, you’re in trouble.”
A little later, wearing a spiffy white shirt and black vest to ride a bull named Titanic, Boettcher went down as if he’d hit an iceberg.
An injury every 12 to 14 rides
Bareback rider Darren Clarke, from Australia, makes it through 10 days of rodeo by getting a massage every day.
“There’s not a muscle you don’t use,” he said. Or abuse. Backs, hands, ankles, knees, shoulders. Even cowboys get the blues. They break bones as frequently as others break bread and they pray the pickup men on horseback and the clowns on foot can distract animals trying to stomp them.
A daily “contestant injury update” was issued during the Finals: “Forest Bramwell, bareback, broken thumb riding hand, shoulder separation. Spud Duvall, steer wrestling, torn ligaments in right knee. Dan Mortensen, saddle bronc, neck strain. Rob Bell, bull riding, bruised right foot, ankle, calf, thigh, elbow, shoulder.” On and on.
The training room of the Thomas and Mack smelled of liniment. Bareback rider Clint Corey sat on a turned-around metal folding chair, shirt off, while a trainer soothed his shoulders with a rubdown. It is as close to upright as he sits. Riding, bareback riders are virtually horizontal. Their necks might dribble off the horse’s rump like a basketball.
“I feel better and I smell better too,” Corey said.
Boettcher pulled his pants down–his hat stayed on–to put on extra riding protection so he would someday be able to have children, and then had his ankles taped.
“A lot of the rodeos, they don’t have doctors, except for the ambulances, of course,” Boettcher said. “I’ve seen guys Super Glue cuts together. People say, `Man, you’re crazy.’ I don’t know what to say. We’re tough.”
Agreed, said Dr. Tandy Freeman, director of medical services for Justin Sports Medicine of Texas, which cared for cowboys here. Freeman has worked with the Dallas Mavericks, arena football teams, soccer teams and minor-league hockey.
“I don’t think there is any group of athletes tougher than these guys,” he said. “They compete with injuries I wouldn’t get out of bed with.”
Freeman said a new injury occurs every 12 to 14 bull rides.
`You’ve just got to do it’
Last season was a nightmare for Cody Ohl. His dad, Leo, was killed in an automobile accident in March. He was so depressed he lost his will to compete.
It wasn’t until June, when he won a rodeo in Ft. Smith, Ark., that he lit the match that refired his determination. Since, the square-jawed, broad-shouldered Ohl, who is 6 feet tall and weighs 200 pounds, has dominated calf roping.
He won five of the first six nights in Las Vegas. Each time he won he tossed his 6-foot-long piggin’ rope to the fawning crowd, risking $100 fines. He was Elvis dispensing scarves. One woman sustained rope burns when another fan yanked away her souvenir. Ohl promised to mail her a rope.
Ohl clinched the calf-roping world championship, had a commanding lead in the all-around and seemed a sure bet to be the first over $300,000 in a season.
And then he turned his knee to confetti. He was on his way to a typical 7-point-something-second victory when he crumpled. But he wouldn’t quit.
Hatchell said it was as if the whole building was saying, “You’ve just got to do it, Cody.”
Ohl tore his anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments. He faced surgery and six months of rehabilitation. Six months? They start keeping score for next year’s National Finals Rodeo in January. On the night he hobbled onto the arena floor on crutches to receive his calf-roping and all-around champion belt buckles–with $296,419 in earnings–Ohl already knew he would not be able to defend in 2002.
But he was not thinking ahead. He raised his hat and his arms skyward as he absorbed an ovation and spoke into a microphone to his absent father.
“Dad,” he said, “I know you’re watching, and I love you more than anything.”
And then the rough, tough cowboy cried. He was all knotted up inside.
