Friday, Dec. 12, 2003 | 10:32 a.m.
Tyler Fowler remembers walking from a Thomas & Mack Center locker room and down a tunnel to some chutes holding bulls Wednesday night at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo.
The next thing he knew, he was waking up strapped to a board in a trainer's room, getting prepared for transport to University Medical Center. The ornery bull Corkscrew had tossed Fowler like a scarecrow and then stepped on his neck. The incident was pictured in Thursday's edition of the Sun.
"I saw a replay of it, where I got up and was moving around," Fowler said after getting dumped by B.A. on Thursday night. "I don't remember getting on (Corkscrew). I was at the hospital for maybe an hour.
"They took pictures. All that stuff to make sure nothing was broke."
That would be X-rays and a CT Scan, in cowboy lingo. No serious damage was apparent, but Fowler was woozy after suffering what he estimated to be his fifth concussion in 63 rodeos this season.
Yes, that was correct three paragraphs ago. He rode Thursday night.
"It's kind of a cowboy attitude," Fowler said. "You know, if it was easy, there'd be a lot more people riding bulls, probably. You know, it might be an arrogant way to look at it, but it's just, I knew it going in when I first started as a kid.
"It's just the way I make a living, what I love to do."
That Fowler, who turns 24 in less than a month, was back on a bull Thursday night did not surprise fellow rider Ryan Brown.
"Any one of us would have gone out there," Brown said. "As long as we could walk to get here, we'd get on."
Bull riders are undoubtedly a different breed. Mike Moore is competing with a torn left biceps muscle that has basically curled up his arm, and the NFR training table is most often filled with these daredevils.
And they think they're brave in Pamplona.
Brown said he didn't know what bull riders possess in their genes that the average person missed.
"I don't think you can really describe it," he said. "It's a toughness, maybe a hardheadedness is what you'd call it. Other than that, I don't think I can explain it. It's tough to explain."
Forgive Fowler, a former Alabama high school bull riding champion who has lazy eyelids and an easygoing demeanor, wears No. 113 on his back and might not have exactly known that Las Vegas is in Nevada late Thursday night.
"I don't know," he said, when posed the same question that Brown was asked. "I don't know what it is. I don't know what makes us the way we are. It's something different, I guess."
Most of the right side of his face was scarlet, as if he had fallen off a motorcycle and that side of his mug hit the pavement first. He walked with caution, and a post-Thursday training-room session with ice, among other remedies, stretched from 15 to 20 minutes.
Then 25 ...
He said Corkscrew must have stepped on him at the base of his neck, but his treatment has been world-class and others have told him that there isn't even a scratch on that area of his upper back.
The Justin medical squad, which tends to and mends Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association members, wouldn't have allowed Fowler to compete Thursday if further injury would have jeopardized his well-being.
Afterward, he couldn't thank that medical team more for loosening him up and prepping him for B.A. Fowler goes 5-foot-9 and tips the scales at 140 pounds. Thursday night, though, the 1-ton beast with wings won.
His ride lasted maybe three seconds. After smacking the ground, Fowler used five slow crawls to inch away from where he landed, then he tried rising three times. Ultimately, he needed help from at least one PRCA official to rise to his feet and leave the arena.
Riding animals named Locomotion, Freight Train, Red Pepper, Back Fire, Mr. Hyde, Fist Full of Dollars and Psycho for a living does develop an immunity to danger.
"We're at the Super Bowl of rodeos," Fowler said. "All rules kind of step aside here. You bust your tail throughout the year to get here, you know? All the stuff you go through to get here, guys sure don't want to give it up that easy."
Fowler entered his second NFR in the middle of the 15-man pack, with $83,126 of earnings in 2003. He has won $6,012 here, riding only two bulls in the first seven rounds.
Three remain, and the checking account needs padding. Had he chosen to sit out Thursday, it would have come at a price -- NFR rules require two days off for injury.
In Fowler's mind, no matter how jumbled it might have become after meeting Corkscrew, he wouldn't have returned Thursday if he didn't think he could win. Each night's top score gets $14,335.
Besides, there have been worse days. He sustained a broken leg in an Arkansas rodeo last year. He awoke not knowing where he was and with a body that ached from head to toe.
"That's bad," said Fowler, who estimated that the pain he felt, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, was "five" as Thursday neared midnight.
He'll be back atop some two-horned ball of fury tonight.
"There have been worse days, and there's probably a worst to come," Fowler said, "you know?"
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