Columnist Ron Kantowski: Bodacious bites the dust

Thursday, May 25, 2000 | 10:04 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's column appears Thursday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.

This column is about a lot of bull.

Today, even moreso than usual.

Bodacious, the fearsome 1,800-pound bull best known for turning rodeo cowboys into Hamburger Helper, is dead at the age of 12. Owners Sammy and Carolyn Andrews said the great yellow Charbray died of kidney failure in his retirement pen in Addielou, Texas.

I wonder if Tuff Hedeman sent flowers.

Long before Will Perdue tried to dribble the length of the court, Bodacious had earned the distinction of "The World's Most Dangerous Bull." He was more powerful than a locomotive, and while he couldn't leap tall buildings in a single bound, he always got serious air upon exploding from the chute. But it was his thick skull that made him lethal.

Bodacaious had all the ingredients to become a professional wrestler. He was absolutely huge, snorted a lot and developed a head butt that could turn Stone Cold Steve Austin into molten lava.

Just ask Hedeman, who back in 1995 at the Pro Bull Riders Finals at the MGM Grand literally had his face rearranged by the bucking beast.

One of only a handful of riders to have stayed aboard Bodacious for the required eight seconds, Hedeman actually was excited to have drawn him in the finals. The finals paid bonus points, and anybody who could ride Bodacious was guaranteed a ton of them, provided he lived to tell about it.

Hedeman nearly didn't.

"The first jump felt fine," said the popular rider, who recently was profiled by The Nashville Network. "Then all of a sudden, whack! When I was walking out of the arena, I bit down and my teeth didn't come together. So I figured my jaw was broken.

"I didn't realize my whole face was smashed."

When Hedeman felt his eyes swelling shut, he popped his contact lenses out. It took two surgeries, 13 hours and six titanium plates to put his face back together.

"The good news was I was ugly to begin with," Hedeman said.

The world champion rider promised his four-year-old son that he would never attempt to ride Bodacious again, even if he drew him during the National Finals at the Thomas & Mack Center with a capacity crowd and national television audience watching.

Druing the '95 NFR, Hedeman drew Bodacious for Round 5 and became Not So Tuff. Nobody blamed him when turned the bull out -- rodeo lingo for "Do I look crazy?"

"After Bodacious splintered a facemask all over Scott Breding's face a couple of nights later, Sammy retired him right there in the NFR arena," Hedeman recalled. "Bodacious was going to kill somebody."

Big Bo had a wonderful retirement. He had his own agent, was featured in GQ and Penthouse and appeared in a Bud Light spot. There were Bodacious belt buckles, watches, rifles and T-shirts. He went on tour. And his owners preserved his legacy by distributing his semen to other bucking stock contractors.

That, my friends, is no ordinary bull. Throw a smoking jacket over his rugged flanks, and that's Hugh Hefner.

But Phil Sumner, Bodacious' original owner, put the bull's reputation in perspective during a Bodacious tour stop at Harrah's a couple of years ago.

"If he weren't the competitor he is," Sumner said, "he'd be hangin' in the packing house."

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