THIS AIN’T RODEO, BUT FANS LOVE IT
If you refer to a Professional Bull Riders event as being a rodeo to someone with the PBR you are quickly corrected.
It’s not rodeo, it’s bull riding, they’ll say.
They’re correct in one regard.
Some of the PBR fans I encountered outside the Thomas & Mack Center do not share what nearly all rodeo fans do: politeness, manners and smiles.
Each year during the National Finals Rodeo, which this year will be contested Dec. 4-13, a held door is acknowledged with a “Thank you.” Someone bumps into you and it’s always followed by an “Excuse me.”
I didn’t experience as much of that this weekend during the PBR Finals.
Don’t get me wrong, PBR bull riders are as cooperative and polite as any other rodeo athlete. It’s the PBR fans — at least those who must have traveled from east of the Mississippi — who need to be schooled in the cowboy way.
RUDE BRAZILIAN FANS
Bull riding is huge in Brazil and it seemed like a few hundred traveled north to watch fellow countryman Guilherme Marchi win his first world championship.
It also must have been important to them to see Brazilian great Adriano Moraes compete in his last Finals before retiring.
It was appalling, however, that many in the green and yellow colors of Brazil cheered when J.B. Mauney was bucked off Saturday night to lock up the championship for Marchi.
I’ve never seen rodeo fans cheer for the failure of a competitor.
Marchi won five events in 2008 and covered nearly 75 percent of the bulls he rode. He is a great sportsman and certainly wasn’t pleased that Brazilians reacted that way.
If Brazilians want to be rude they should stick to following soccer.
NAME GAME
Rodeo athletes and the animals they ride — or try to — often have unique names.
This weekend’s winners are among the best ever.
Top name for a bull rider is Ryan Dirteater; best bull name is Booger Butt.
Dirteater is appropriate for a bull rider, and I don’t want to know how they came up with Booger Butt.
IT’S GLOBAL
Contestants in the Finals came from 14 states as well as Brazil, Canada and Australia. Texas had the most with 11, Brazil and Oklahoma were next with seven each followed by Missouri (three), New Mexico (three), Colorado (two), North Carolina (two), Louisiana (two), Australia (two) and one each from Canada, Virginia, Washington, Kansas, Georgia, Nebraska, Idaho and Oregon.
IT ONLY TAKES A BIG HEART
Bull riders come in all sizes, and the smallest at the Finals was Brian Canter of Archdale, N.C. The 21-year-old is only about 5 foot, 2 inches tall and weighs less than 120 pounds.
He had covered only one of his first five bulls but rallied to score 89.75 on Saturday and 91.75 on Sunday.
