IN FOR A WILD RIDE AS THEY CHASE RODEO DREAMS.

Byline: Pat Berman Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

After Sunday morning church services and before the work week begins, Stony Collins and rail-thin young men just like him pull on their tight jeans cinched with big belt buckles and gather at the Triple E Bull Riding Arena outside Anderson, S.C.

They come to ride the bulls owned by the three young Ellison brothers. The riders look puny in relation to the one-ton bulls' bulk, and the notion of riding them seems pure folly. That is part of the attraction.

The riders are mostly Southern boys who grew up in rural towns like Belton, Powdersville, Honea Path, S.C., and across the border in Chicopee and Lavonia, Ga. A few come for the adrenalin rush that rises as thick as the dust when the snorting, slobbering bull spins and jackknifes on the ring's soft dirt.

But most come with a dream. They are welders or store clerks or construction workers or barely out of high school. They want to be professional rodeo riders. A few have made the grade. They are the wiry and weathered cowboys whom the slender neophytes want to become.

Collins, 19, won the jackpot of $140 on a recent Sunday and is breaking into the circuit of rodeo riders. "I've been doin' this for four years. I reckon I'll just keep working at it," he said as he loaded his rope, handle and spurs into his gym bag for the drive back to Easley, S.C.

The dues that bull riders pay are considerable - sometimes more than they can afford. "It's never a question of will you get injured, but when and how bad," Matthew Collom said. Collom is a paramedic whose company, Kadi Rodeo Medical Team, staffs rodeos. Bumps, bruises and upper extremity injuries are most common, Collom said.

The most dangerous situation occurs when a rider "gets hung up." That's when the rider is bucked off the bull but can't free his hand from the strap around the bull's belly. The rider is mercilessly yanked around like a rag doll - maybe kicked or gored in the process - while rodeo clowns try to extract him.

But on a bright Sunday afternoon at the Triple E, it's a dream and not a nightmare that seems within the grasp of a gloved hand closed tightly on the leather strap.

The ride costs $10. Spectators, many girlfriends and wives, pay $4 admission to sit in the bleachers and watch - if they can bear it. Sometimes fathers and friends show up, but mothers are a rare presence. Maybe they took Willie Nelson's admonition to heart, but their babies still grew up to be cowboys.

"Adam's mother said she'd like to be here for her son's first ride, but she knew he was in good hands," David "Doc" Cannon said. Cannon, a former rodeo rider, started a nonprofit organization, Cowboy Heritage And Preservations Society (CHAPS). Adam Crapps is a protege.

Like most of the cowboy acolytes at the Triple E, Crapps, 17, didn't say much. He smoked a cigarette or two, knelt and prayed with other CHAPS members, and waited his turn.

About 30 riders were signed up, and Crapps would be 22nd. His first ride would come at the end of the day on the back of a Brahma bull who bucked and backfired like a pickup truck on a bad stretch of road. Crapps lasted about four seconds, which is impressive for a first ride. But the bull had taken a breather before he flipped off Crapps like a bothersome fly.

David O'Bryant, 28, had an even shorter ride. A welder from Georgia, O'Bryant lasted a second or two. His wife, Robin O'Bryant, 25, who is in beauty school, watched gamely from the stands. "He's always wanted to ride in the rodeo. For the last six years I've been saying it wasn't a good idea."

Then the movie "8 Seconds" opened, and "we watched it so much we bought a copy of it," she said. "8 Seconds" refers to the length of time required for a cowboy to ride the bull and was based on the life of the late Lane Frost. Frost, also in his 20s, died from a bull-riding injury.

The seconds splinter and dissolve quickly for onlookers. But for the riders, time is the one thing that stands still. Eight seconds is an eternity.

O'Bryant, who was on the bull for his fourth ride, said he was "a lot nervous." On his previous ride, the bull hooked a horn under O'Bryant's protective vest, but fortunately, the horn came loose before O'Bryant did.

As Joey Clamp, 21, readied to ride, his 2-year-old son, Aaron, stood by. Asked if he thought his son might follow in his spurs, Clamp replied: "I hope not. I hope he's got more sense than his daddy."

Clamp's ride was short, too, as he was lurched forward and half somersaulted off his bull. He escaped injury.

Signs stating "Not Responsible for Accidents" are posted on either side of the 80-by-90-foot ring. Riders sign waivers releasing the Triple E from responsibility for injuries.

The Triple E boys, Chad, 16, Daniel, 15, and Clay, 12, don't ride anymore. Asked why they quit bull riding, there is a collective shrug and a couple of "I don't knows." But they have their hands full running the arena that their father, David Ellison, financed.

The senior Ellison operates Palmetto Livestock, where livestock is bought and sold. The family home is on a hill overlooking the lot and the arena. The bulls graze in nearby fields.Their mother, Densel Ellison, didn't grow up around livestock and didn't care much for the smell of cattle. "Now they smell like money to me," she joked. She collects admission at the gate.

The brothers are even skinnier than most of the other cowboys. Chad and Clay appear indifferent to media exposure, but Daniel is more responsive. "People didn't think we'd last. They thought we'd get tired of it in a couple of months and quit," he said.

But it's been two years, and the brothers still like what they're doing.

Not surprisingly, they have a rough sense of humor. A bull coming from behind and launching an unsuspecting cowboy into the air is a guaranteed laugh-getter. Wile E. Coyote couldn't do it better.

Daniel described the bulls and bull riding and included colorful photos with his rundown. "We have about 64 bulls - mostly crossbreeds. Clay always wants to claim the ones that buck the most." Hacksaw and AC/DC are their best buckers, but Herbie the Hereford fools riders. "They think because he's a Hereford and his tongue is hanging out that he won't be hard to ride," Daniel said with a knowing laugh.

Their bulls look healthy, and the more experienced rodeo riders say they are as good as bulls get. Asked about cruelty to animals, Daniel said the bulls don't seem to mind much, and some enjoy it. "And if they didn't buck, they'd be hamburger," he said matter-of-factly.

And if the rider does not want to be hamburger, he practices a few basic skills. "Sitting on your pockets" is a no-no said Daniel. The expression refers to the back pockets of your jeans, which should not be resting on the bull.

Instead, the bull is gripped primarily with the thighs and knees. The rider centers himself before the ride, focuses on a spot on the bull's back and never looks away, especially not at his free hand. The free hand is a counterbalance to the bull's moves.

Mouthpieces are not that effective, Daniel said, but helmets with face masks are. Vests are becoming more common, but few riders wear the helmets.

As for the bull, he has been unfairly demonized in everything from fairy tales to front pages. And bull behavior can be fearsome. Wham! They sandwich a rider against a steel fence. Flunk! They fling a rider to the ground and stomp on precious parts of his anatomy.

But sometimes the bull stands silently in the ring seeming to survey the crowd with his golf ball-size eyes. And in his expression a number of thoughts can be projected: curiosity, puzzlement and irritation.

It is not a challenge the animal requested, but of all the contests between man and beast, bull riding appears to give the bull an advantage. By the end of the day, the score was bulls 23, riders 3, with a few no-shows.

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PHOTO

Photo Trying to extend his ride, Ryan Norton hangs on during a bull-riding event at the Triple E Bull Riding Arena near Anderson, S.C. Knight-Ridder Tribune Photo Service