Fascinating

Eight Seconds

Posted at May 28, 2008 13:48

By Jeremy Goldmeier

DUSTIN HALL EARNS his paycheck eight seconds at a time. Think
that sounds easy? Ask his coworker: two thousand pounds of bucking,
snorting rage. Making a living as a professional bull rider has its
perks—plenty of downtime, exotic travel, and hearty prizes for placing
at an event. But for those eight pivotal seconds, it’s the least desirable
position in the world of sports: hanging on tight as a wild beast does
everything in its power to dislodge you.

It’s a punishing line of work, and Dustin has the injury history to
prove it. But when he’s in the saddle, Dustin’s where he wants to be.

Growing up in the country community of Harrah, Oklahoma,
Dustin was immersed in bull-riding culture from a young age. It was
the kind of town where people like his father and uncle rode bulls “as
a hobby”—just the sort of thing to do for some kicks on the weekend.
Despite, or perhaps because of its inherent danger, Dustin was eager to
try his hand at the sport. His father was ready to oblige, but his mother
refused to see her son exposed to the dangers of bull riding. It
was one of several disagreements that drove the two of
them to a divorce. As part of the settlement, Dustin
could not ride bulls until he turned eighteen.
Even then, it took his stepfather to convince
his mother to let Dustin give it a shot.

His first ride was a common story for
novice cowboys. The bull turned hard right
out of the gate and sent Dustin for a tumble.
But Dustin got right back up to give it
another go.

“It wasn’t hard at all,” Dustin says of dusting
himself off after his first attempt. “I was
excited to do it again. Once you get past the butterflies,
you’re good.”

For professional bull riders, success is often not merely
a question of talent. To take the kind of consistent punishment that
riders endure—and bulls sure know how to dish it out—riders have to
possess an intense drive to compete. They are not necessarily fearless
men. Dustin still admits to getting nervous in the holding pen before
each ride as he waits atop his mammoth bull for the gate to fly open.
But perhaps more so than any other athletes, bull riders understand
how to control their fears and use them to their advantage.

“I think I do better when I get scared,” Dustin says.

The popular perception of how to ride a bull is to simply hang on for
dear life. But it’s trickier than that. What looks like chaos to the untrained
eye is actually a series of give-and-take between bull and rider.

“It’s kind of like a dance,” Dustin says.

The bull kicks; the rider sits up and then bows forward in rhythm
with his mount’s movements. It’s not so much brute strength and white
knuckles as it is sound balance and sharp timing. Riders can train on
horses and wobble boards in their spare time—or mechanical bulls, if
they’re feeling kitschy—but nothing substitutes the intensity of the
real thing. In his rise to Professional Bull Riders, Inc., (PBR) Dustin
relied primarily on his natural abilities.

“I didn’t exercise a lot,” he says. “It just all clicked for me.”

His first couple of seasons in PBR marked a stunning arrival. After
breaking into the pro bull-riding fraternity with six appearances in 2000,
Dustin stepped up his game the next season. He finished in the top ten
at six events in 2001 and won his first PBR contest in Reno, Nevada.
That triumph netted him a check for fifty-five thousand dollars, still
the largest sum he’s ever received for a single event. Dustin
doesn’t remember what he spent that money on, but
he probably blew a lot of it in a hurry. He was
still only twenty years old but already making
more money than most people see in a year.
In order to face the challenges that were
going to start cropping up in his young
career, Dustin would have to grow up fast.
Meeting his future wife Jessica helped that
maturation process immensely.
Jessica had heard that Dustin was “full
of himself” from other riders. Thankfully,
it turned out that they were just jealous, she
says. The two hit it off, despite their different
backgrounds. A Springfield native, Jessica convinced
Dustin to move to southwest Missouri, where the
couple and their two daughters currently reside. It was the first of many
changes Dustin would undergo as his career progressed.

“Bull riding was his life,” Jessica says. “The idea of taking a weekend
off to go fishing was out of the question. It was an obsession for him.”

But getting married and becoming a father changed Dustin’s perspective
on life considerably. He came to realize there was something
much more important to live for than just the action down at the rodeo.
At the same time, Dustin was getting a new lease on his spiritual life.
He had talked extensively about his faith with some of his fellow PBR
members, including longtime friend and roommate Mike Lee. With his colleagues’ encouragement, Dustin recommitted himself to Christianity
and began attending Bible study programs regularly. As he continued to
improve as a bull rider, Dustin matured more rapidly as a person.

These systems of support that Dustin had cultivated became more
important when his career hit the skids in 2003. Early in the season,
a bull stomped on his left knee after Dustin had fallen to the dirt,
causing severe ligament damage to the joint. As a result of the injury,
he had to wear a brace for several months. After a short hiatus, Dustin
tried to soldier on but suffered an even more devastating injury when
he broke his right arm in a second accident. That was the arm that he
used to hang onto the bull, and with it out of commission, he simply
couldn’t take to the saddle until it healed and strengthened properly.

There were more setbacks than progress with his injuries, and
Dustin wound up off of the PBR tour for two full seasons. He got
the chance to spend more time with his family and, as he underwent
various rehab activities, talked on the phone extensively with Mike.
But there was never any question that he wanted to return to competition.
Once he was healthy enough to start riding again, Dustin had to
rediscover his sense of timing. That was no easy task after spending so
many months on the sidelines.

“There was a while there where it seemed like I couldn’t ride anything,”
Dustin recalls.

But once he got back in the swing of riding, Dustin’s fortunes took
off once again. The 2006 season became Dustin’s dream comeback
campaign. He placed in the top ten at eight events, won the PBR’s
St. Louis event, appeared in his fourth PBR World Finals, and earned
over $125,000. That success has carried over into 2007, as Dustin
once again sits among the PBR’s top twenty riders in total points. He
attributes the success to his family, who travel with him all over North
America, and his renewed trust in God.

His favorite Bible passage, Isaiah 58:8, has a great deal of relevance
to his long journey back from injury to the PBR spotlight: “Then shall
thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring
forth speedily; and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of
the Lord shall be thy rear guard.”

Dustin’s certainly not your typical Hollywood cowboy—he’s boyish,
soft-spoken, and a consummate family man.

“His witness is to be the best example he can be,” Mike says, “and
he’s trying harder than ever before.”

After Dustin’s brush with early retirement, he and Jessica think a lot
more about their future—including life after the PBR.

“It’s not going to be there forever,” Jessica says. “It can be taken
away quickly. That gold buckle might shine today, but it won’t mean
anything when you’re seventy.”

Dustin hopes to raise cattle after he retires from professional bull
riding and maybe have some more time to participate in his favorite
hobbies of hunting and fishing. Until then, he’s going to keep at the
sport he loves. Now he knows that while those eight seconds of excitement
might make his paycheck, life has a bounty of more rewarding
moments to offer.

Oct 2007

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