Bull Riders Just Might Be the Toughest Athletes Around

Last Saturday night I had the pleasure of attending the PBR (Professional Bull Riders) Velocity Tour event at Verizon Arena in North Little Rock. The Velocity Tour is kind of like the minor leagues for the PBR Tour with a bunch of young guns trying to reach the summit of their sport. I had never watched a PBR event in person and hadn’t even so much as watched more than a few minutes of one on television. However, I always had a great respect for bull riders, commonly referred to as cowboys, because what they do is obviously spectacular and something that I could never imagine myself doing. A lot of my respect for the sport of bull riding, despite never having much knowledge or viewing of it, likely comes from all of the great rodeo country music songs I grew up loving by artists like Garth Brooks, George Strait and Chris LeDoux who really do capture the romance and beauty of a cowboy riding a bull. And, it’s a romance and beauty that is so quick, so over in a matter of seconds that it’s really hard for the brain to almost comprehend. Eight seconds of almost anything seems like nothing. Hell, eight seconds occur seven and a half times every single minute. But, I’m betting that eight seconds on a bull for some of these cowboys can seem like an eternity, with that massive beast bucking and twisting and turning wanting nothing more than to fling the cowboy from his back and then stomp his brains out for having the audacity to attempt to ride him. It’s likely the most thrilling eight seconds in sports. And, it’s something that I don’t believe gets enough attention, enough respect from sports fans around the country. I understand that bull riding might not be everybody’s cup of tea, hell, I previously stated here that I’d never given it too much thought, but do yourself a favor and watch just a bit of this on television or even better, like I did, in person and you’re going to find out that when it comes to tough as nails athletes, there might not be any tougher than those cowboys who make a living trying to best hell-fire in the encasing of a 2,000 pound bull.