My Heroes Don’t Wear Sneakers

When I left my house in the suburbs that Sunday morning to drive into Denver to visit a friend’s church, I had no idea what was about to happen. As I turned my car onto the side street that led to the church parking lot, a small man walked across the street just ahead of me. It was Charles Sampson, African American cowboy, pro bull riding champion, and the first black man to win a world title in any rodeo sport. In 1996, be became the first living African American rodeo competitor to be inducted into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame. Having grown up in Oklahoma in the shadow of Bill Pickett, a black star of the Pawnee Bill Wild West Show, and surrounded by rodeo stories all my life, I just about came undone with excitement. I was about to worship under the same roof with Charles Sampson!

Today, I knew that I would get close enough to talk to him somehow, unlike that brief meeting at a fundraiser five years earlier when he autographed a book for me and moseyed on about his promotional business. I wanted desperately to tell him about my equine assisted therapy work with grieving kids, and ask for his help.

My heroes have always been cowboys, and they don’t wear sneakers, usually. You can bet this legend never had a sneaker deal. He is a cowboy. He had followed the path blazed by black cowboys of days past, like his friend and mentor Myrtis Dightman, and had achieved fame previously unknown by any black cowboy except Bill Picket himself.

I waited patiently for the service to end, and I approached him, nervously, almost reverently. Up close, and not dressed in cowboy attire, his 5’4” and 134-pound frame seemed much smaller than I had remembered. As he looked me in the eye and showed genuine interest in what I had to say, my eyes took in the detail of the first prosthetic ear I had ever seen up close. I have since read that a bull ran over him in 1988 and ripped off his ear. The prosthesis is just the most visible of his battle scars from his days of riding bulls, but by no means the worst. He was the first to wear a lacrosse helmet while competing, after sustaining a life threatening head injury in 1983. Helmets are commonplace among young riders today. He agreed to meet with me in the near future and hear more about my work. We exchanged phone numbers, and I hoped that he would remember me when I called. He did, and welcomed our meeting.

When I arrived at his barn, he was feeding his horses. He showed me his young roping horse that he was training, and we swapped horse trainer stories while he worked. When he was done, we retired to the hay shed to get out of the cold and talk. The man I met that day was no ordinary cowboy. He was intelligent, kind, and moral, qualities not always found in one cowboy’s body. He had the quiet intensity of someone who is sure that he can do a difficult and dangerous task far better than most of us can imagine, not unlike a soldier who has been in combat. His middle-aged frame still flaunted the fitness and conditioning of a top athlete, unusually broad shoulders and powerful hands showing where he got his strength to outlast rank and cantankerous Brahma bulls.

We sat on hay bales and exchanged the stories of our lives. Sampson has said that a visit to a California rodeo when he was a kid convinced him that he wanted to be a cowboy. I curious to know how a kid from Watts found his way into rodeo, but the topic never came up, and I think I understand why. When asked about Watts and the ghetto, he once told the Los Angeles Times, “Hell, I’m no ghetto child, I’m a cowboy.” Since I was a country boy who grew up around rodeo, maybe he knew that I already appreciated that and it needed no further explanation. I focused on the cowboy he had become. Reminiscing about his first competitive bull ride in Tishomingo, Oklahoma, he chuckled as though unsure whether or not to thank the men who put him on it.

Charles spoke seriously about his life, telling of frustrated plans to make a movie of his life story. Ever humble, he still has a keen sense of history. At times uncomfortable with talk about being the first black this-or-that, he believes his story is important, and he wants to tell it. Even with his accomplishments, it is clear that life after bull riding can be tough. Bull riding had not left him a rich man. As he spoke of jobs that he had done from time to time, I learned that he had become a regular working stiff like the rest of us.

Since that day, Charles Sampson and I have become colleagues, both spending time working with children and youth, and finding ways to use horses to help them. No African American bull rider has matched his accomplishments in professional rodeo. It must please him to see a generation of young black cowboys continue to try.

I was happy when Charles Sampson won his first title, and even happier when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. But nothing will ever compare to our meeting in the hay shed. Close enough to see his battle scars, and close enough to sense his integrity, my hero became my friend that day. Willie Nelson exhorted mamas, “don’t let their babies grow up to be cowboys.” I am thankful that Charles Sampson’s mother ignored his advice, because the world might have missed out on a true hero, and I might have missed out on a great friend.

About Michael D. Dawson, MA, LPC:
Michael D. Dawson, MA, LPC has been running his practice in Aurora, Colorado since 2001, however, Mr. Dawson has been active in the counseling profession since 1976. Mr. Dawson works with individuals, couples, adolescents and groups, assisting them resolving issues such as mood disorders, co-dependencies, relationship and family challenges, depression and anxiety. For more information about Michael D. Dawson, MA, LPC, call (303) 481-4257 or visit www.MichealDawsonCounseling.com