Sean Willingham tries to stay aboard 1,800-pound bucking bulls for a living. This week, his vocation has required more pedestrian challenges.
“Stuck in Atlanta traffic,” Willingham reported by phone as he made his way to the Georgia Dome on Thursday morning.
Willingham, a professional bull rider who grew up in North Georgia and once hoped to play college basketball, will ply his trade Saturday in the Professional Bull Riders annual stop in Atlanta. He has an appointment with a bull by the name of Little Kombat.
“It’s not like any other bull riding you’ve ever seen, or any rodeo,” Willingham said. “It’s the best of the best, the top 35 bull riders in the world against the top 35 bulls.”
Saturday’s format provides the 35 riders one ride, with qualifying riders advancing to the championship round for one more ride. Those who stay on the required eight seconds are scored on their ability to maintain control and also the bull’s degree of difficulty. The winning rider will pocket about $40,000.
The Atlanta Invitational begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are available.
The tour, founded in 1992, operates far beneath the world of major professional and college sports, but has its following. The PBR visits New York’s Madison Square Garden annually (swimsuit model Kate Upton was in attendance in January) and has stops ranging from Houston’s Reliant Stadium and Detroit’s Ford Field to Rimrock Auto Arena in Billings, Mont. About 2 million people attended roughly 200 events last year, including about 170 on the tour’s minor-league Touring Pro Division.
The main tour has a title sponsor in Ford, and each event is televised. NBC Sports Network, formerly Versus, will broadcast the Georgia Dome event. The points winner after its world finals event in Las Vegas wins $1 million.
“I never thought I’d be a millionaire by riding bulls,” said Willingham, who has earned $1.1 million in 10 seasons, not including endorsement money. “It’s worked out good.”
Willingham, 30, has made his career in part by being one of the tour’s more durable riders. The Atlanta Invitational will be his 224th consecutive PBR event, the second longest streak in tour history.
Willingham was placed on that path as a child growing up in Summerville, about 20 miles northwest of Rome. The bull riding at a Summerville rodeo caught his attention and led him to try it himself.
“Once I tried it, I was hooked from Day 1,” he said.
His fascination with the sport ultimately led him to give up basketball at Chattooga High. He went to Western Texas College on a rodeo scholarship before leaving to join the PBR. In his first event, Willingham caught a bull horn in the temple as he was standing up after getting bucked off. The blow cracked his skull.
“It was a pretty good lick,” he said.
He said it took him two years to return, spending part of the time recovering and working at a feed store in LaGrange.
“After the injury, I felt like I was a man on a mission because I’d been away from it for so long,” he said.
He has won six events in his career and has hung on longer than most. His training regimen includes mountain biking, chopping trees, yoga and the Insanity Workout, a DVD exercise program similar to P90X. His hope is to compete at least five more years, at which point he would like to become an agent to younger riders.
“I’m still young,” Willingham said. “I’ll do it as long as they keep me around, as long as I’m healthy.”
A bull named Little Kombat will have his say Saturday.
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