Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Jer-zeeee cowboy

The bulldogger who has stormed onto the pro rodeo scene is a simple, no-nonsense loner who mostly chose to sit in the back row of classrooms as he progressed through school.

Joey Bell Jr. even chose to sit in a corner of the back row in an interview room Sunday night at the Thomas & Mack Center, which is staging the $4.8-million, 10-day Wrangler National Finals Rodeo.

And he hails from ...

New Jer-zeeee?

At least, that's how public address announcers Boyd C. Polhamus and Bob Tallman have playfully introduced steer wrestler Bell, appropriately the only cowboy represented by the state flag of New Jersey during opening ceremonies each night.

No doubt, lesser-informed rodeo fans in the arena can relate to that television ad in which cowboys, sitting around a campfire, marvel about the New York City origin of the salsa they are eating.

The guy who is tantalizingly close to his first world bulldoggin' title is from where?

Loudspeakers have blared "The Boy from New York City" by The Manhattan Transfer before each of Bell's runs, conjuring images of him yearning for the most famous skyline in the world as he gallops his horse on the wrong side of the Hudson River in his youth.

That would be a stretch, said the 6-foot-4, 220-pound Bell. A big stretch. In fact, he dislikes concrete, steel and glass so much that he has cringed whenever he has passed New York New York, or any of the mega-hotels, on The Strip over the last few days.

His girlfriend, parents and a few friends even left him behind Sunday morning when they went to the Stratosphere, where they planned to experience the most breathtaking view of Las Vegas.

"I just laid there on the bed," Bell said. "I'm not into all that stuff. I can't stand the city. I mean, too many people for me. I'd rather lay on the couch, watch TV and rest when I can."

Bell rides with Cash Myers during the season, and Cash, his brother Rope and their friends and loved ones will ski or attempt other activities when they are in certain rodeo towns, weather and time permitting.

Bell, instead, seems driven to make up for precious time that he has lost. He keeps a post office box in Salem, N.J., but only as a mailing address. He estimated that he now spends less than a month a year there.

His home base is Texas, and he flits between the compounds of bulldogger Jerrod Pillans, and Butch, Rope and Cash Myers -- the first family of steer wrestlers -- in and around Athens, Texas, about 65 miles southeast of Dallas.

"Joey's a cowboy," said Cash Myers. "He's not a city kid. He's rodeoed all his life, and he went to college in Oklahoma. He's a cowboy, as far as that goes. He's not a Yankee kid or anything like that."

Bell, 29, was born in dairy farm-rich Woodbury, N.J., where strong northerly gusts brought the distinct fragrance of Philadelphia. In high school, he competed in the Pennsylvania High School Rodeo Association, riding everything but saddle broncs.

He whittled his regimen at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M and trimmed it more at Oklahoma Panhandle State University, settling on team roping and steer wrestling when he left college.

Soon, he concentrated on bulldogging, cowboy slang for steer wrestling. That single-minded focus, however, did not manifest itself in a trip to the NFR, so Bell cut his ties with his New Jersey cronies.

It took two years, but he finally parlayed a mutual acquaintance with the Myers outfit into a solid career.

"That's a lot of it," said Colorado native K.C. Jones, who won Monday's go-around, and $13,923, in 3.7 seconds. "If you get with winning people, you'll win. If you're not with the right people, it's hard to be a champion."

Bell figured he's about two years behind schedule.

"I got into some bad situations there," Bell said of his Jersey crew. "For a while, I wasn't getting any better. The people I was with, basically, they were running at their level. They acted like they knew how to get me here, and I didn't know no better.

"I'm from New Jersey. What do I know?"

Bell declined to reveal any names.

"I was jumping out of different trucks," he said. "It was just a bad situation that caused me to get into a little bit of money trouble."

Bell initially hooked up with Rope Myers, attending his bulldogging school with the diligence of a monk in a monastery and finishing $3,000 away from a trip to Las Vegas last year.

Butch Myers, the father of Rope and Cash, won the world steer wrestling title in 1980, which Rope accomplished last year.

"They're the biggest thing about it," Bell said of his success. "I ain't a rocket scientist, but they made it to where I could actually see it and figure it out, instead of just running out there, grabbing a steer's head and jerking him around.

"There's actually a reason why you do everything, and move and all this. They helped me see that, and that's why I'm at the next level and where I'm at now."

With a four-second run Monday, Cash Myers netted $7,073 to nudge Bell out of first place in the year's money standings with $108,686.

Bell recorded no score in his first run Friday, when he grabbed air as his steer stopped an instant before he dismounted Ranger, Cash's horse that both of them ride. Bell won Sunday's go-around in 3.6 seconds, but he placed out of the money Monday and is about $1,500 behind Myers on the money board.

According to Myers, Bell has improved dramatically in setting goals, paying attention to detail and balance.

"He uses his legs a lot more than when he first started with us," Myers said. "That's really important. That's the way me, my brother and my father have always bulldogged. We've always believed in using your legs and having good balance. He's improved there a lot."

So much so that Bell helped Rope instruct some bulldogging classes in Georgia in November, and Bell will run one of his own sessions in New Jersey in May.

When he returns to Texas from the NFR, Bell will review with Rope and Cash, and plan for rodeos in Fort Worth and Denver in the new year. He will likely be in position to buy his own spread near Athens, too.

The days of skipping from Butch and Cash's homes in Athens, to Rope's house 30 miles to the northeast in Van along Interstate 20 and then to Pillans' pad 35 miles to the southwest in Streetman, off I-45, might be over.

"He's looking to get a place in Texas, and I think he's looking to get married, the whole deal," Cash Myers said. "He'll be a Texan before too long, but he'll always have New Jersey in his heart. It's home."

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