Ring of Honor: Hart

By Keith Ryan Cartwright, PBR
Posted Friday, May 15, 2009

The Iron Man to be inducted Saturday in Pueblo

PUEBLO, Colo. (May 15, 2009) - *On Saturday, three men – Adriano Moraes, Justin McBride and J.W. Hart – will experience an honor that has been bestowed upon just 27 former professional bull riders before them.

The following article, "Hart, Soul and a Sense of Humor," was originally published in the current issue of “Pro Bull Rider” magazine.

There are no guarantees when it comes to life as a professional bull rider. J.W. Hart learned that lesson long before he ever climbed into a bucking chute at a Built Ford Tough Series event. He was only 19 years old when he drove all night and most of the next day from a rodeo in Oklahoma to another one nearly 800 miles away in Denver.

He hadn’t slept in more than 24 hours, and barely had time enough to grab a sandwich before heading over to the arena. It was mid-April, and he already longed for a chance to ride Wild Onions. If only he had been able to get a couple hours of rest beforehand, things might have worked out a little differently for the wiry Oklahoman.

Sleepy-eyed and a little road-worn, Hart got on, pulled a tight rope, and nodded his head. Almost as fast as the gate man pulled open the chute, the bull turned back, and Hart was pulled down into the well. As Hart puts it, “I just remember being so tired, and thinking, ‘Why hang up tonight? I just want it to be over with.’”

It was far from being over.

Hart was hit on the top of his head as he was pulled underneath the bull, and it felt as though his “whole body went numb and went to sleep.” By the time he got loose from his rope, the bull had slung him up against the chutes. When he tried to crawl off, his body folded up and he collapsed onto the dirt.

For the first few seconds he couldn’t move, and then a tingling sensation came over his entire body. Within minutes, the medical staff had Hart on a stretcher and out of the arena. Lonnie Steverson called Hart’s mother Debbie, and before doctors had even scheduled an operation for the next day, she was at her son’s bedside.

He had broken his neck. Such is the life of a bull rider.

To everything, a season

Now, some 15 years later, Hart’s professional career is over, save for one last bull – Cat Man Do – he plans to ride at a Challenger event in Decatur, Texas. One that carries his name. No more all-night road trips up and down the highway. No more risking life and limb to earn an honest living.

But the age-old adage still rings true: there are no guarantees when it comes to life as a professional bull rider—even one who’s retired. Hart has learned that lesson yet again.

Hart, 34, said he never really retired from bull riding, because he felt retirement was something that is reserved for those who were “the elite best,” and, well, the 2009 Ring of Honor inductee just didn’t think he was good enough to announce he was retiring. So he figured he’d “just quit.”

It’s a decision he didn’t come to easily.

In fact, he spent the better part of 2008 avoiding the topic. Everyone from fellow riders and longtime fans wanted to know if he had indeed retired. Even his wife LeAnn had been asking, for a year, “You’re not getting on anymore are you?” Hart, usually outspoken – a trait he got from his mother – would just grin and laugh.

“Inside I was still kicking it around myself,” he said. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I wasn’t going to tell somebody I was going to keep going when I didn’t know, and I wasn’t going to tell somebody I was done when I didn’t know.”

One night in early January, he and his wife heard that they been selected by a young couple in Michigan as adoptive parents for their unborn boy. Hart told himself, “all things considered, it just looked like a really good time to quit and not keep embarrassing myself.”

In addition to waiting for their first child, and the stress of legal paperwork that needed to be taken care of with the adoption agency, the Harts were also in the midst of moving into a new home. No longer a “hot shot” bull rider, he was focused on fatherhood and adjusting to life as a rancher, while commentating on the weekend as part of the Versus broadcast team.

The unknown was exciting for the couple. Or rather, it was, until Hart received word that he needed to return from a BFTS event in Birmingham Ala. to Oklahoma as quickly as he could.

It was on Monday, March 16. LeAnn had received word that the young girl in Michigan had been having false labor pains, but would soon give birth. At the same time, Hart’s mother was in the hospital, and “had taken a turn for the worse.” On Tuesday afternoon, LeAnn left for Michigan to be there for the birth of their son, while Hart stayed in Oklahoma with his father and four siblings to be with his dying mother.

In the wee hours of the morning on March 18, Wacey Dalton Hart was born. Saddened that he wasn’t there, an emotional Hart used his cell phone to share the first photo taken of his son with his mother. Eight hours after he became a father, she passed away.

“It was tough,” Hart recalled. “We were all so sad my mom had passed, but it was peaceful, it really was. … You can’t imagine the mixed emotions. It was quite the deal, I will admit that.”

Washing down the last of a steak, egg and cheese biscuit with some sweet tea, he then concluded, “The good Lord sure blessed me with a sense of humor.

“I’m not one of (those) guy’s who praises the Lord in big crowds and pushes it on anybody, but He sure has been good to me. He blessed me with a good family, a good wife and a good life, a great career—shoot, I feel like the luckiest guy in the world.”

Such is the life of a retired bull rider. His iron exterior contains a man who is equal parts son, brother, husband and, now, a father.

Outside foot

“It’s been a whirlwind,” he said.

Looking back on his career, Hart has often referred to himself as a “hot shot,” while some have mistakenly called him cocky upon first meeting him. But it’s all part of his keen sense of humor. “That tickles me,” he said. “It really does.”

Whether he was competing at one of the 252 BFTS events he entered – 197 in a row, which was a then record that earned him the moniker “Iron Man” – or one of the many PRCA rodeos he drove to, Hart embodied what it was to be a professional bull rider.

Ray Nitschke and Dick Butkus have long represented the toughness that has made the NFL what it is, while Lou Gehrig and Cal Ripken, Jr. have shown durability in Major League Baseball. Hart’s career embodies both. From the start, he had the toughness and durability that has defined the PBR since its formation.

“When you’re a bull rider in the PBR, then you’re tough,” Michael Gaffney explained, “and he’s the epitome of that.”

Hart had grit and determination. He also wasn’t afraid to say what he thought, but the one thing he hopes is that for all he’s said and done, “I don’t want to come across as hateful, because I don’t want to be hateful to any of these guys. I know where they’re at.”

Talk with any cowboy who rode with him and they’re not likely to bring up past comments – oh, they have plenty of stories – or the aforementioned streak, which Hart attributes to “luck” as much anything.

Instead, Gaffney had two words: “outside foot.”

Hart couldn’t have been more than 18 the first time Gaffney saw him nod his head. The former World Champion said he immediately noticed Hart was a gutty kid with a lot of balance and try, who never gave up. Time and again Gaffney would watch Hart use that balance in order to spur with his outside foot.

It’s not easy for a rider to maintain control when a bull is going away from his hand, and yet, according to Gaffney, Hart could use his right leg almost at will, and he made it look easy. In fact, at times, he made it look so easy it frustrated other veteran riders.

“It really was, truly, amazing to watch,” Gaffney said. “When I think of J.W., that’s what I recall.”

“That just runs chills through me to hear G-Man say that about me,” Hart said. “That right there makes me feel validated enough to go into the Ring of Honor.”

Hart used that outside foot to accomplish quite bit throughout his career.

He was the 1995 Rookie of the Year, the first in PBR history, and his best year was in 1998 when he finished fourth in the world standings. From 2000 through 2003, he had a four-year stretch where he finished in the Top 15 in the world. In 2002 he was the PBR World Finals winner, and then two years later, in 2004, he was the Challenger Finals winner.

In 252 career BFTS events he registered twenty-nine 90-point rides − eighth on the all-time list − including a career-best 94.5 on Hollywood in 2000. He’s seventh on the all-time list for career earnings having won more than $1.3 million.

It may have been a long, hard road to success, but for the most part, there were plenty of memorable moments. He once bought two brand new four-wheelers he fondly recalled, even though he had “no clue” how he was going to transport them from Florida back to Oklahoma.

But, then again, Hart and Gaffney are two guys who, over the years, definitely got into their fare share of “stupid” incidents along the way. There was, for example, the time they roped a 7-foot alligator that Aaron Semas, Ross Coleman, Brian Herman and others wanted no part of.

“We got him up in the boat,” remembers Gaffney, “and he did the death roll.”

“Yeah, we pulled him up into the boat so we could take pictures and then turned him loose. If there was a catch-and-release program we had it,” said Hart, laughing. “We’re idiots. What were we thinking?”

“Ah, it was just a gator,” Gaffney said. “He wasn’t but 40, 50, 60 pounds. It’s not like when you see those guys having to sit on those big crocs. I mean, it’s a gator, and when they’re smaller – as long as they’re out of the water – you have some control, as long as you’re paying attention.”

That particular incident stands out to Gaffney not because “there are certain things, maybe, you shouldn’t do,” but it has more to do with what he learned about Hart that day. Whether he’s in the bucking chute and ready to nod his head or outside of the arena, there’s “no backup” in Hart and, equally important, “he’s always true to his word.”

Again, such is the life of a bull rider. They mean well, but all too often they’re long on try and perhaps a bit short on reason and common sense.

Honored

“I never did consider myself one of the best in the world,” said Hart, of his inclusion into the Ring this year along with Adriano Moraes and Justin McBride. “I guess, in the back of your mind you always wonder if you were good enough.”

Hart will no longer have to wonder.

In mid-May, as part of the first-ever Wild, Wild West Fest, he will receive his Ring of Honor at a ceremony the night before a BFTS event in Pueblo, Colo. That night Hart, McBride and Moraes will become only the 28th, 29th and 30th bull riders to experience the feeling of putting that ring on for the first time.

“He’s one of us,” said Gaffney, who was inducted in 2005 along with Troy Dunn and Bobby Steiner. “There’s nothing more satisfying than to be accepted by your peers.”

It’s only fitting that Hart would go into the Ring the same year as he became a father. His son Wacey was named after his childhood hero Wacey Cathey, who qualified for the NFR an impressive 14 times from 1986 until 1991, a record he still shares with Ted Nuce.

Cathey was inducted into the Ring of Honor in 2001.

“A lot of people forget that one of the greatest bull riders of all time was Wacey Cathey,” Hart explained. “I said, ‘If I ever have a boy I’m going to name him Wacey,’ so I stuck to my guns and I did it. … (LeAnn) liked it, but it didn’t matter whether she did or not. That was going to be his name.”

Unlike the others who wear the same ring, there’s one bit of unfinished business for Hart.

A week later, he’s going to attempt one last ride. Hart spoke with Chad Pennington, the Miami Dolphins quarterback who owns Cat Man Do, and at the suggestion of his wife LeAnn, with no money at stake, the 34-year-old will give the fans one last ride.

LeAnn felt that since he didn’t announce a retirement, it would be nice for Hart to give “the fans one chance to come see it be over.” According to Hart, Pennington thought it was a great idea and gave him his blessing to ride Cat Man Do in Decatur.

It’ll also be the one opportunity for young Wacey to see his daddy the same way his daddy once watched Wacey Cathey.

Such is the life of a bull rider.