Ross Coleman was just a 20-year-old rookie when he walked into a Houston steakhouse with Aaron Semas.

Twelve events into his career, Coleman was a newcomer to the PBR when stock contractor Terry Williams asked if he was the Oregon boy who had drawn Rampage. Coleman nodded.

"Yes sir, I have Rampage tonight."

"He's like, 'Well, best of luck to you,'" Coleman recalled. "He kind of said it like I had no chance in hell of riding him."

Williams wasn't the only who doubted Coleman.

Rampage was a big black bull that riders didn't like drawing because the way he'd whip them down off his back. At the time, he had only been ridden once at a PBR event, when Troy Dunn stuck it on him for 95.5 points.

Looking back at a moment that would define his entire career, Coleman admits that he "was a scared (kid) deep down," but he turned that fear into adrenaline. Eight seconds later he became the second of only six riders to ever make the whistle on Rampage.

He rode him for 91 points and earned his first Top 5 finish.

"That was my initiation into the PBR," Coleman said. "That's when it was really fun for me. The last couple years it was more or a job."

Saturday night, Coleman announced via Twitter that after 13 years, he was retiring from the PBR.

The 32-year-old from Molalla, Ore., was the first rider in PBR history to compete in at least 300 Built Ford Tough Series events, record 800 outs, and earn at least 400 qualified rides. He is as likely to be inducted into the Ring of Honor as his college teammate and longtime traveling partner Justin McBride was upon his retirement three years ago.

"It's weird to say, but the PBR is a like a family to me," Coleman said.

"It's a hard to decision to make because I've been part of this bull riding for a long time, and it's really been a part of me too, but I'm hanging it up, and I'm more than happy to make that decision. It took me a while to make it, but I'm happy to do it and I'm happy to be done with it."

Coleman came to his decision Monday afternoon. In the five days before his announcement, he labored with reality.

He changed his mind once, and it wasn't until he was driving from his home in Henrietta, Texas, to this weekend's event in Springfield, Mo., that he finally settled on his decision.

He spoke at length with his wife Amy and his parents, but it was a call with his close friend and confidante Tom Teague that helped him to realize "it was time."

"I'm pretty frightened, actually," he said of the future. "I have a family to take care of and I'm the man of the house, but I know I'm a hard-working guy and I can take care of anything I put my mind to, no matter what it is."

Coleman is going to be the point man for the ABBI and their new Back Seat Buckers program.

He also plans to host several bull riding clinics, hopes to work with young up-and-coming riders, and will continue to host multiple Touring Pro events each year.

"It's just another part of my life that I'm just stepping into," he said.

Coleman was born and raised on a ranch in the Pacific Northwest.

He won his first buckle at a junior rodeo when he was 11. The next day he gave that buckle to a terminally ill boy at the Shriners' Hospital in Portland, who was unable to attend the rodeo as a spectator. At 14, Coleman had his first $400 payday and thought "there will never be another poor day in my life."

In 1997, he won the national high school bull riding and all-around titles as a senior.

A year later, he won the all-around title at the College National Finals Rodeo as a freshman at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, but not without the help of lifelong mentor Ty Murray.

Coleman, who like his hero was competing in all three rough-stock events, had been struggling when Murray flew into town.

"He asked me how I had been doing," Coleman recalled. "I didn't really whine, but I said I'd had a crappy one here and bad luck on this one, bucked off another. He just looked straight at me right in the eye and said, 'Change it.' Then he just left. I thought, 'He's serious.'

"It was a turning point in my career, my life."

Coleman won the all-around title, and year later transitioned from rodeos and regional events on the West Coast to competing in the PBR alongside Murray, Semas, Dunn, Jim Sharp and Michael Gaffney. He and McBride were just two kids supporting each other "as much as you've ever seen two guys pull for one another."

Semas took him under his wing and treated him like a brother.

"I was part of the crew then," he said.

And Murray was another of the veterans who helped show Coleman and McBride the ropes.

"Ty Murray is a positive influence and he doesn't waste words," Coleman said. "Everything he says is meaningful. He's frickin' straight up and he's a hardcore bad-ass."

Those early lessons proved to be of great value.

While an injury to his riding hand has limited Coleman's production in recent years, it's an injury that he's dealt with since his bronc riding days in high school and college.

"It felt like I put my hand in a vice every time I got off my bull," he said.

However, he learned from his mentors not to make excuses.

That's why one of his greatest contributions to the sport of bull riding came after a wreck in 2007. Coleman was knocked unconscious in a chute mishap at an event in New Orleans, when Cadillac Man reared up and slammed his unprotected head off the front railing.

When Coleman returned later that month in Albuquerque, N.M., he did so with a helmet.

Although there were a few others before him, Coleman is largely credited with making it acceptable for others to don a helmet.

"It's awesome for the sport," said Coleman, who until then didn't always see it the same way. "I thought Ty Murray wore a cowboy hat, so I'm going to wear a cowboy hat. Tuff Hedeman wore a cowboy hat. He broke his neck and busted his face up real bad, came back and still wore a cowboy hat. I always thought I was going to wear a cowboy hat, but I'm telling you, those shots to the head…. I've had so many shots to the head, especially that one in New Orleans. I swear to you, man, I think my head still hurts from that one."

That injury got Coleman thinking about life after professional bull riding.

By then he was no longer single.

He and his wife Amy now have two sons, Cooper Teague and Cruse Lee, and where he was once wild and carefree, Coleman's first priority now is the family he will have more time to spend with.

In addition to his toughness, Coleman has always been known for his selfless acts in helping others.

In 2005, he began producing and promoting a Touring Pro event in his hometown. That year he did it as a fundraiser to help raise money for his childhood buddy Jack Peterkin, who had been diagnosed with cancer.

In the years since, he's raised nearly $250,000 for the Make-a-Wish Foundation of Oregon, and in 2009 he was honored for his efforts with the Katie's Star Award. In 2009 and again in 2010, his fellow riders in the PBR have voted his Molalla event as the top sanctioned event of the year.

What he'll miss most is the camaraderie of the locker room.

His decision to call it a career was not made any easier having watched Murray and Semas or even McBride retire from the PBR. Instead he said it was weird this weekend coming to Springfield and not putting his rigging bag in the locker room next to Luke Snyder's and Brendon Clark's.

"I'll dang sure miss them," he said. "They were all like brothers to me. It's a brotherhood."

That's why on his way to the event he needed the reassurance from his father and from Teague. He also tried calling Randy Bernard, who was the CEO of the PBR prior to taking the same role with the Indy Racing League. Bernard is in Japan and couldn't be reached.

Although he never won a world title, Coleman said he retires with no regrets. Teague explained to him that it was the right time to look ahead to the future.

His father convinced him that while he might still have what it takes to be a Top 10 rider, he's no longer a contender for a world title.

"I think those years have gone by me," Coleman said. "My dad shoots from the hip and he said, 'You've been talking about it for awhile. It's time. There ain't no reason to jack around with it … Don't beat around the bush.' My dad is somebody I looked up to my whole life and he's the hardest working man I know and I really respect him, and I dang sure respect Tom."

He later added, "I can't thank the PBR enough for all they've done for me."