After pulling his boots on, Paulo Crimber had to think for a moment.

It had been 2 and a half years since the 30-year-old had climbed into a bucking chute. He was certain that his broken neck had healed and the time was right to resume his professional career, but he had to think for a moment about the technique he had once used in tying his boots.

Once his hand was taped and he was in the chute, though, it was as if those long months never happened.

“I feel life again,” he said, after successfully riding two practice bulls with the help of his friend Guilherme Marchi.

It was early December when Crimber, his wife Maria, and children Gabriel and Joao, drove to Marchi’s ranch. “We just put it God’s hands,” he said.

No one else knew he was going. There were no cameras.

Crimber said that not only did it feel good to ride again, but that he was more focused than at any point in his career. He was doing what doctors had told him he would never do again, and he felt good.

Crimber’s wife saw something in his eyes that she had hadn’t seen since well before he broke his neck for a second time in June of 2008.

As the Crimber and Marchi families looked on, he and Maria embraced.

“To be honest with you, it feels like it’s easier than before – yeah, no joke,” he said.

People get ready

Crimber’s parents divorced when he was only 6 years old. He and his two older sisters, Luciana and Velma, lived with their mother in Olimpia, Sao Paulo, Brazil. They were “not starving, but poor,” and Crimber got his first job when he was 7 years old to help his mother with the bills.

His first job was keeping the livestock from wandering out onto the roadway. To combat the boredom, he started smoking cigarettes.

By 9 he was openly smoking two little boxes a day. At 10 he cooked burgers at a fast-food type restaurant, where he started drinking.

During his early teen years he dabbled in recreational drug use.

Crimber had been exposed to the sport of bull riding, but a local rider he looked up to was “bad guy.” According to Crimber, the man let the local kids drink, and gave them “drugs and bad stuff.”

Many of his friends found themselves addicted and eventually in jail for various crimes. Crimber had the foresight to see a different path. At 15 he dedicated himself to becoming a professional bull rider.

“The way I see it,” Crimber recalled, “God used bull riding to take everything bad out of my life.

“After that I never put a cigar in my mouth again. I drink once in a while with family, but no drugs, no nothing. All the bad stuff I left behind as soon as I became a bull rider. … I had to learn, from myself, the Lord’s way. My mother had to work. I cannot blame her. Bad or good I learned by myself.”

Midway through his teens, a pattern of overcoming adversity had been set.

Exodus

Three years later, Crimber came to the United States.

At 18, he couldn’t write, and could barely read Portuguese, let alone English.

Crimber credits Toby Clowers and Cory Melton with helping when he first came to the U.S. in 1998. Back then he would simply point at something and learn one word at a time.

“I just kept learning, learning, and pretty soon I was speaking better than I was,” he recalled. “I don’t like to read or write at all. The only book I ever read is the Bible.”

To this day he alternates between English and Portuguese versions, but it takes a lot of work to comprehend a passage. He said he has to push himself to make time to read, and that he has no patience for learning how to write.

He does own an iPhone and read short text messages, but only sends a text in return if his wife is there to help him with the spelling. He even owns an iPad that he travels with, but only checks “what is necessary.”

“I can read better than I can write,” Crimber explained. “I mean, I cannot write a check if you want me to. No. And I don’t have any inspiration to learn, because it’s always easier to—my wife, she does all that for me. She’s really good. She manages everything – bills, checks and all that. I just have to do the hard work.”

Work

A fan favorite admired as much for his celebratory dances as he was for the actual rides, Crimber’s promising career has been marred by injuries – not the least of which were back-to-back broken necks in 2008.

He’s ridden in 166 career Built Ford Tough Series events and has a career riding average of 50.72 percent. In 2007, he finished the season ranked in the Top 10, and three other years he finished in the Top 15.

But in 11 seasons on the BFTS, only twice has he competed for an entire year.

In 2008, just two weeks before he broke his neck for the first time, he won a BFTS event in Anaheim, Calif., the same event where he plans his triumphant return this weekend. That year he broke his neck in St. Louis on Feb. 23, and again in Orlando, Fla., on June 6.

On June 7, an emotional Adriano Moraes said that Crimber’s career was over and that he was officially retired from the sport. Crimber said he and his wife considered moving back to Brazil, but instead they elected to try to make things work here.

“I don’t treat anyone bad because I’m going through tough times,” he said. “Through all that, I’m still the same person. Through all that, I never gave up, because I could have just sat home and just said I ain’t going to do nothing.”

Instead he took a series of odd jobs.

Crimber has never been one to shy away from hard work. He cleaned stalls for ranchers and spent 12 to 15 hours a day breaking colts for $20 a horse, often starting as early as 5:30 a.m. and working until well after dark.

He said there have been days when he’s had as little as $100 in his bank account and bills on the way, but “the Lord provides every time.”

He willed his way through the recovery period as he hoped and prayed for a time when he could once again pursue the career he was not yet ready to put behind him.

“My mind is really strong,” Crimber said, “When I set something to it I can get it done if I want to.”

Last year, PBR Livestock Director Cody Lambert encouraged Crimber to participate in a judging seminar. Afterward, Senior Vice President of Competition Jay Daugherty began scheduling him to work various events as a judge.

For Crimber, it was another option brought on by hard work.

“I just did what I was supposed to do,” he said of the past two years. “A lot of people don’t do that, and that’s when they just get kind of disappointed.

“If people can see what I’ve been through, stay on their feet with their head up and do whatever they need to do to continue living … It’s not embarrassing, because I didn’t feel embarrassed at all to go back to work and do whatever. I’ve never been afraid of working and never will. What we have here is really great, just blessed to be here.

“Sometimes you whine about a little broken neck or something like that, and if you look back, there’s always going to be somebody worse,” he continued. “That’s what I learned. Every time I thought my situation was bad, I try to look behind me, and there’s always somebody else worse than me.”

One love

Friday night at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Crimber will compete at a BFTS event for the first time since 2008.

He had hoped to share the moment with 5-year-old Joao, who’s already won five buckles at various mutton bustin’ competitions. But money’s tight, so the family will watch on television, instead.

Johnny wasn’t yet 3 when Crimber last competed at a televised event . He has no memory of his dad’s career.

“I told him I was one of them and now he knows,” said Crimber, who added that Johnny almost cried at thought of his dad being a famous bull rider. “It’s pretty cool. It’s unbelievable. It’s something I cannot really describe.

“He loves me and he doesn’t want anything back except love. You can see him try to get inspired by me. Whatever I do he wants to be like. It’s really emotional.”

“Bull riding is my life,” he said. “Jesus is first, my wife, two kids, and then bull riding. It’s what I am.

“It feels like He brought my life back.”

— by Keith Ryan Cartwright