White rode roller coaster to title

Thursday, Nov. 30, 2000 | 11:58 a.m.

PRCA

Stick with any sport long enough and you're bound to face some rough terrain. Make bull riding a career sport and you can kiss flatland good-bye.

Bull riding by nature is a tumultuous event. Just when a guy thinks he's made it to the top of a seemingly insurmountable peak, he can become a victim of circumstance and plummet to the valley where he began. The 1999 world champion bull rider Mike White knows.

In December 1998, White entered his second National Finals Rodeo one spot out of the lead. But an avalanche of misfortune during the 10-day NFR sent the Louisiana cowboy sliding to sixth place in the year-end world standings.

Fast forward one year to the opening night of NFR '99. This time White is staring up that metaphorical mountain, 12 spots below top-ranked Greg Potter, the Australian-turned-Texan who all year dominated the PRCA's regular-season standings. But, as White proved during the 10 championship rounds that followed, maybe it's not the altitude but the attitude that wins world titles.

"Last year I came here (to Las Vegas) in second place thinking I had a pretty good chance at winning the world," said 23-year-old White. "I got too relaxed, too confident.

"This year was different. I was coming from behind and had to make every round count. I couldn't get too comfortable. By the eighth round I was tickled to death, though. It was on my mind a lot."

White, the 1997 overall and bull riding rookie of the year, looked plenty comfortable on the backs of the six bulls he rode to win the '99 NFR average title and, subsequently, pass 11 of his competitors in the race for the world title. In Round Two, the Cajun sensation matched NFR history with a 95-point ride on Flying Five Rodeo's Skoal's Yellow Jacket. Eight-time world champ Don Gay set the 95-point arena record at the 1976 NFR when White was only 3 months old.

"That was definitely exciting," White said of his record-tying ride. "But I didn't come here thinking about Donnie Gay's record. I came here to win a world title and I had to stay focused on that."

White attributed much of his success at the 1999 Finals to his increased ease with bulls that turn away from his hand.

"I've really gotten along with left-handed bulls in the last three months," explained White. "I've just got on the right bulls, made the right moves going to the left and it's really built my confidence."

It showed in his NFR performance. White finished third or higher on every bull he covered, bringing his NFR total to $93,484 (almost double what he earned in the regular season). He finished with $151,371, just over $15,000 shy of Ty Murray's 1998 season-earnings record in bull riding.

Murray's record may have been seriously threatened had White remained healthy throughout the regular season. A fractured vertebra suffered early in the year sidelined White for nearly a month. Then in late June, the 5-6, 145-pound cowboy tore a hip-flexor muscle, a nagging injury that bothered him into November. White, a native of Lake Charles, La., also got married earlier in the year, making 1999 a definite standout.

"It's been a great year," he said, smiling and shaking his head after winning the 1999 world championship.

"It's overwhelming. It's an incredible way to finish out the year, that's for sure."

Those who watched the '99 NFR from inside the Thomas and Mack Center or on ESPN may have recognized the guy with the No. 2 back number pulling White's bull rope. It was calf roper Cody Ohl, another rookie-of-the-year-turned-world-champ.

"I met Cody at a rodeo and I was impressed that he, a world champ, took time out of his schedule to talk to me and help me out," said White. "We've been friends ever since. That's what a world champion should be, someone who will talk to anyone and everyone."

Now it's White's turn to show some of that world-champ style. And he's got a gold buckle to prove it.