As soon as Paulo Crimber realized his son John wanted to become a professional bull rider, he knew he either had to support him wholeheartedly or accept the fact that John was going to run off and do it anyway, whether he liked it or not. After all, Paulo was once young and determined—some might say bullheaded—to be a professional rider, too, but his mother didn’t like the idea. Spinning around on the back of a 1,500-pound beast was just too dangerous, she said. What if he got hurt?
If you ruminate on all the things that could go wrong, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll never swing your leg across a bull’s back and white knuckle your way through the wildest, most spine-snapping eight-second ride of your life. Don’t think about becoming the one in fifteen who gets hurt riding a bull, or whether you’ll bust your knee, get a concussion, or, on the rare occasion, die.
“Just think about having fun doing what you love,” John says.
That’s the way his father has always approached the sport, and he became a Hall of Fame rider, then a judge, then a coach in the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) league. Now he’s John’s first professional team coach. On the heels of John’s second-place finish in this year’s PBR World Finals, Paulo, who coaches Florida’s newest professional sports team, the Florida Freedom, selected his 18-year-old son first in the draft. Now the Crimbers—plus a roster stacked with 11 other riders—hope to bring the excitement of bull riding to South Florida (and perhaps even a championship or two).
“It’s been so long since bull riding was in Florida,” says Paulo. “I have a lot of friends in the state, and I know that people have missed it. When we did our first training camp, a lot of people showed up and were really into it. So, I think it’s going to be a great, great season and great experience for everyone.”
According to Mark Fine, PBR chief marketing officer, ticket sales for Florida Freedom’s first homestand at Amerant Bank Arena this August exceeded expectations, with an announced attendance of more than 20,000 fans—fashionably bedecked in Western boots and hats—across the three-day event. The Freedom didn’t fail their new fans that weekend: John went seven for eight on his rides, ending the event in the lead for the PBR’s MVP title. The team finished the weekend in sixth place—just three wins out of the PBR first-place spot.
Hooting and hollering echoed through Amerant Bank Arena, as fans cheered each buck. None of the cowboy craziness fazes Fine—even in a new market. It’s the kind of action South Florida has been waiting for, he says.
“There’s probably even some PBR fans out there who don’t even know they’re PBR fans yet,” he adds.
The implication is that there will be converts, and sooner rather than later. Bull riding has easy-to-learn rules (see page 70), raucous grace, and the romance of the American West. For a metropolitan area with a large Brazilian population, the sport is also full of Brazilian-born riders like Paulo, who left their country because the chances of bull riding glory were greater in the United States. Fine says these stories resonate with fans and create stronger connections to the team.
For many riders, the story begins when they see their first competition. As a child growing up five hours outside São Paulo, Brazil, Paulo recalls being surrounded by horses and cattle and watching a steady stream of American Western films on television. He admired cowboys because they were honorable and brave, but the day he saw one on the back of a bucking bull, something inside him shifted.
He envisioned himself on the bull.
He was 9 years old at the time and determined to learn bull riding on the sly, because his mother, who was single, did not approve. He rode his first big bull at age 14, and then says he did everything he could to get to America and go professional. At age 28, his career was cut short after he broke his C1 vertebra twice in one season. He was ranked first at the time, and John was a toddler who looked up to his father the way all little boys do. Paulo’s injury didn’t seem to shake John’s growing desire to become a bull rider.
“Oh, I’ve wanted to be a bull rider since I was itty-bitty,” says John, whose baby face is a reminder that he is barely out of high school. “There’s pictures of me riding the couch or the dog and stuff, and I’d be wearing my cowboy spurs and boots and chaps all around. I just thought it was really cool.”
For Paulo, PBR was his life. And it still is. After doing daywork near his family’s Fort Worth–area home to make ends meet, he was contacted about judging competitions and later co-coaching a PBR team called the Arizona Ridge Riders. In the two seasons Paulo coached, the team rode to second and third place finishes.
“It was a fun experience,” Paulo says. “But I knew it was time for me to move on and do my own thing.”
Enter the Florida Freedom, which hired Paulo earlier this year. On the day Paulo’s hire was announced, team owner Heath Freeman said he was glad to have a proven winner mentoring the team’s riders.
“Paulo is a proven winner—a 10-time World Finals qualifier, a Brazilian sports legend, a teacher, a coach, a mentor, and a family man. For someone living the real-life American dream, there’s no better place than the Florida Freedom,” Freeman said.
There was also no better place to get a shot at drafting John, who was the No. 1 pick.
“We got that first pick, and we got John,” Paulo recalls. “Everyone was wanting him, and they tried to trade for him before the draft started. A lot of people thought it would be tough for me to coach him professionally, but I’ve been coaching him for his whole life. He always wants to get the best bull, the one he has the best chance to get the most points on. Not everyone has that attitude. My toughest job before he was 18 was to hold him back a little bit.”
Now, he’s not holding John or any of his teammates back at all.
“I’m going to do the best strategy for the team to have the chance to win,” Paulo says. “In our first game in Oklahoma, we picked the bull that would be hardest to ride, and John took it on himself to ride it. That shows how he is as a team player, a rider, and a person, and it’s been the most fun.”
To prepare for a competition, John says he works out Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and then gets on bulls on Wednesday afternoons. The main thing is getting on the bulls, he says, and getting a feel for how they maneuver and how you should maneuver in return before jumping off their back. You come at it from a place of love and respect for the animal, which loves and respects you back if you treat it right.
“They respect you to a point when you feed them, when you water them, when you take care of them; they know you’re going to be the one taking care of them for as long as they are with you,” Paulo says. “But when you’re riding, it’s different. It’s just you respect him, you have a job to do, and he may not understand it, but as the smart one you’re
going to have to know when to get out of the way.”
Though the Crimbers currently divide their time between Sunrise (where the Florida Freedom franchise is based) and their home in Texas, they know there will come a time when they move to South Florida to be closer to the team’s home turf. Would it bother them to leave the Lone Star State behind? Not one bit. Florida’s beaches and palm trees remind them of Brazil, and it would be nice to be closer to that.
At press time, the Freedom were three-and-a-half wins out of first place, and John was ranked second among all riders in the league. Three other riders—Thiago Salgado, Caden Bunch, and Alex Cerqueira—held spots in the top 20, showing that this is a squad full of prowess and promise. John is on his way to stepping out from the shadow of his father’s 10-gallon hat and forging his own legacy. Paulo is content to give him the spotlight.
“Nobody knows him as the son of Paulo,” Paulo says. “They know him as John and me as the father to John. It’s really cool that, every time he rides, I ride with him, and God gave me that opportunity to live through him.”
Bull Riding 101
So, you’ve scored tickets to a bull riding event. Here are the rules you need to know so you can look like it’s not your first rodeo.
- The clock starts when the bull’s shoulder or hip breaks the plane of the gate. It stops when the rider’s hand lets go of the rope, voluntarily or not. The clock also stops if the rider touches himself, the bull, or the ground with his free arm during the ride.
- Riders must ride for eight seconds with one hand on the bull rope and the other in the air to earn a score. If the rider makes it to the buzzer, he gets a score. If he doesn’t last that long, he does not.
- Each ride is worth up to 100 points. The rider is awarded up to 50 points. Judges look for how in control of the bull each rider is, how well he responds to a bull’s moves, and how fluid he is during the ride. Riders can also score style points for things like spurring the bull.
- The bulls are also competing for points and receive up to 50 points whether the rider remained on board or not. Bulls are judged on how athletic and hard to ride they are. Among other things, judges look at spins, direction changes, and kicks. The more moves the bull makes, the higher the degree of difficulty. If the bull underperforms or fouls the rider, judges may reward a re-ride to give the rider another chance.
- The combined bull and rider scores for each successfully completed ride is the official ride score.
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