PUEBLO, Colo. – There is still a hitch sometimes in Braidy Randolph’s step as he drags his Texas Rattlers gear bag into arenas for the PBR Team Series.
Randolph’s limp dates back to four years ago when the then 18-year-old broke his left leg in four different places. That was not the problem, though, Randolph explained to PBR.com. Instead, it was a few months into his painful recovery when Randolph woke up one day unable to walk.
The Jonestown, Pennsylvania, native had upped his rehab and he had been running and working out extremely hard in the gym with a goal of rebooting his professional rodeo career. Randolph just figured he had overtrained and had a setback in his recovery. No big deal, he thought, and he just grabbed some crutches to move around.
Two weeks later, the pain in his leg was excruciating and Randolph looked down to the see a gaping hole with puss slowly oozing out of where one of his surgical incisions was.
Randolph had no idea when he decided to head to a Syracuse, New York, hospital that day that his body had been rejecting the rods and pins that were inserted into his leg. Nor did he realize that he had developed a serious infection that would require a two-month hospital stay.
“I probably went two months or so with it being infected because when it happened, I had never broken my leg before, so I figured it was going to hurt, but I didn’t think anything of it and just went on,” Randolph said. “I went into the hospital for a month or two because the infection was getting so bad, it was travelling, shutting down my organs and I didn’t have a clue. I said ‘shoot, it’s a broke leg, it’s going to hurt, it was part of it,” so I didn’t think anything of it.”
Randolph’s body was used to battling 2,000-lb. bovine beasts in the arena, but an internal infection was something completely different. Doctors were concerned that they may need to amputate Randolph’s leg. Ultimately, they were able to successfully treat his infection with antibiotics and then an external fixator to help the leg heal appropriately.
Doctors were primarily concerned with helping Randolph still have normal function in his leg, but Randolph was thinking beyond just being able to walk.
“The idea was to just give me enough for a normal life, we weren’t even discussing riding bulls at the time, but I had a different view on it,” Randolph said. “If I could run, play all of my sports with the way it was, why couldn’t I ride bulls? It holds up on me fine, unless I do something to get myself in a big mess. Unless it’s a bad wreck, it holds on me pretty good.”
Bull riding has been Randolph’s livelihood since he dropped out of high school during his sophomore year as a way to provide income for his family while growing up near Ocala, Florida, before moving to Pennsylvania near his uncle, Clovis Crane, and grandparents.
Randolph credits Crane as being one of his initial coaches.
“I had always roped my whole life, actually,” Randolph said. “I rode bulls throughout junior high and stuff, just for another event. Team roping and calf roping was my thing. My uncle, he always rode rough stock. Every time I would go up north and visit him, I would get on calves or bulls with him, so he kind of got me started. When I was 15, my mom and dad split. I had to work at the time, grow up a little quicker, so I figured, shoot, I’ll go rodeo on the weekends.
“That’s how I realized I could make some money doing it, because when I was 15-16, I started amateur rodeoing and I would get on bulls and I would go rope in Florida. After the divorce, I stayed down in Florida for about two years trying to make it work. It was a little too tough, so I went back home (Pennsylvania) with my family and my uncle and grandparents and just started rodeoing up there. Working with a little more support and things really took off there.”
The broken leg was quite the setback for Randolph, who has since broken his leg three additional times. Broken legs have forced him to sit out for multiple months at a time.
“It was really hard for me mentally to get back riding with this leg because not a lot of guys … I don’t know anyone else who would’ve gone back to riding bulls with that,” Randolph explained.
However, Randolph believes he has finally gotten close to 100% now, and when Rattlers head coach Cody Lambert called him to inquire about joining Texas this summer, Randolph believed it was an opportunity he could not turn down.
Randolph is 3-for-14 for Texas, but he is starting to flash some of his talent for the Rattlers. Randolph helped the Rattlers defeat the Arizona Ridge Riders two weeks ago at Thunder Days with his 89-point ride on Baptism Fire. This past weekend, Randolph went 1-for-2 and finished second overall at the All-American Cowboy Fest PBR Challenger Series event in Ruidoso, New Mexico.
Following a rough start to the season (4-11), Texas has won six of its past seven games and is coming off an event win at Thunder Days ahead of hosting Rattler Days this coming weekend at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Rattlers begin its homestand against the Oklahoma Freedom (13-9) on Friday night (8:45 p.m. ET RidePass on Pluto TV.
Randolph has been living this season 1 hour away from Dickies Arena at Lambert’s ranch in Bowie, Texas, and that experience is one Randolph hopes will help him continue to elevate his own personal career.
“He pushes us to be good and he wants us to be the best we can, and I appreciate that,” Randolph said. “I’ve had a family always push me to really do good, but he pushes us to really be the best we can and it’s a big help. He keeps telling us to go forward. All we can do is just do our job the best that we can. At the end of the day, if we can ride five bulls, that will eliminate everything. He wants to win just as bad as us, and I can understand that.”
Photo courtesy of Andre Silva/Bull Stock Media