PUEBLO, Colo. – The beginning of the PBR Team Series wasn’t the riders. It wasn’t the teams.
It was the coaches.
The group of men guiding this generation’s superstars and inaugural franchises of the Team Series are legends themselves, and their camaraderie and competitiveness can be traced back to the early 1990s.
Fans can learn more about the early days of the PBR Team Series and the iconic friendships – and rivalries – that are fueling it today in PBR Team Series: Getting the Job Done, presented by ZipRecruiter. The series airs on RidePass on Pluto TV beginning with episode one on Sept. 1 at 8:30 p.m. ET.
“From my career, from 1999-2011, those six or seven years of my best years I had, it felt like a team atmosphere to me,” said Missouri Thunder head coach Ross Coleman. “Because I had Justin (McBride), my best buddy. I had J.W. Hart. I had Aaron Semas. I had Michael Gaffney, Ty Murray, Jim Sharp. All these superstar guys around us the whole time. Yes, there were the Jim Sharps and the Michael Gaffneys and the Semases that were like the founders and kind of the leaders of the locker room, but then there was us young bucks, like me and McBride, showing up too. So, it was a perfect fit for everything, and it was a hell of a ride, man. It was a hell of a ride.”
McBride, of course, is now the coach of the Nashville Stampede. Hart helms the Kansas City Outlaws, and Gaffney leads the Austin Gamblers.
They’re joined by Jerome Davis (Carolina Cowboys), Cody Lambert (Texas Rattlers), Cord McCoy (Oklahoma Freedom) and Paulo Crimber (Arizona Ridge Riders).
“I think the Team Series, to the sport of bull riding, is the biggest thing since really the creation of the PBR, since the creation of standalone bull riding,” McBride said. “Bull riding, it is a standalone sport. It is rider vs. bull. But I think we’ve seen, in a team concept, you can get more out of guys. When guys are accountable to one another, when guys can get on the same page about how to ride a bull, when guys can train the same way, when guys can have a purpose, I think you see the results.”
Even before being drafted, the riders agreed.
“I feel like it’s going to be a whole different atmosphere,” said 2022 PBR Rookie of the Year Bob Mitchell. “It’s not that we’re all against each other, but we’re all just riding for ourselves, pretty much. Going into a team, I feel like we’re all really going to come together, work together and really strive to do good for each other and for the team.”
But it adds a new element of competition between the coaches. While they used to cheer each other on, they’re now on opposite sides of the draw.
“It’s really cool seeing where (the sport) is at today,” Davis said, “and just being able to call J.W. in the morning and say, ‘Hey, what do you think about this guy?’ and then see if he’s trying to lie to me or tell me the truth.”
“I don’t want him to know who I’m picking,” Hart joked with a scoff. “I ain’t telling him.”
Leading into the PBR Team Series Draft, presented by ZipRecruiter, on May 23, each coach was looking for different things in potential team members. One valued toughness above all else. Others valued technical soundness and natural ability, or heart, desire and a no-quit attitude.
Different men, different approaches, but one thing has remained the same from their competitive careers.
Everyone is out there looking to win.
“I hear, ‘We’re trying to build for the future.’ I’m trying to build to win right now and every year after that,” McBride said. “And that’s what I’m trying to do every single day, is make sure that we can put the best five guys out there every single game to give us a chance to win.”
Episode one of Getting the Job Done, presented by ZipRecruiter, airs on RidePass on Pluto TV Thursday, Sept. 1 at 8:30 p.m. ET.
Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media
