Boogie Man, Devil’s Doorway, Holy Smoke, Rompus and Wow have fascinated and intrigued UNLV basketball players over the past few days.
No, those aren’t the latest Halloween horror flicks or funky new hip-hop groups.
Those are 1,500 pounds of eye-ballin’, snortin’ and steamin’ mad, double-horned trouble.
The Professional Bull Riders’ World Finals have moved into the Thomas & Mack Center, relegating the Rebels to the Cox Pavilion practice gym for two weeks.
Freshman guard DeShawn Mitchell wants to ride one of the bulls.
“I do,” he said. “I want to get on one and see what it’s like. I’m kinda fast, so it wouldn’t catch me if I fall off. I’d run. But I want to ride one.”
Told of that aspiration, UNLV coach Lon Kruger smiled and laughed. “Freshmen,” he said.
Sophomore point guard Tre’Von Willis was blunt.
“DeShawn had better stay away and let the professionals do that,” Willis said. “DeShawn is one of those people who would hope the clowns save them.”
The newest Rebels might pause when they find out that the National Finals Rodeo, and all of its bulls, calves and horses, will be moving into the Mack for two weeks in December.
Mitchell and fellow rookie Oscar Bellfield winced. They scrunched their noses walking from their dormitory to classes Monday morning.
“I woke up and, whoa! My gosh!” Bellfield said.
“Their ‘stuff’ is all over the ground,” Mitchell said. “Just nasty.”
Not so nasty to keep the players from checking out the ornery beasts. Mitchell believes he could ride one.
Seniors Wink Adams and Rene Rougeau have nudged up against the steel bars.
“Close to the cage, just to see what happens,” Adams said with a slight laugh. “But if you get too close … that bull is a ton. You never know if he could bust out of the cage or not.
“Usually, we go by, pick at ‘em and hurry up and run off, to get out of the way.”
Two cowboys, wearing boots, dark blue jeans and black Stetsons, sat in the practice gym Monday afternoon and watched about 45 minutes of hoops practice.
A team manager fetched UNLV media guides for both. They flipped pages, linking names to the faces on the court, like kids at a birthday party.
Several Rebels were just as amazed at the cowboys’ profession.
Chace Stanback, who is sitting out after transferring from UCLA and will be a sophomore next season, said he’s never seen anything like these creatures.
“I have a tough enough time at practice, as it is,” Stanback said. “Imagine if one of those things threw you off. Of course, I messed around with them a little.”
UNLV players can walk outside the gym into a tunnel that leads into the Mack and find semi-tractor trailers backed into the arena to load and unload bulls.
The tunnel is a maze of steel bars and cages. Sixteen inches of dirt covered by heaps of straw are just a couple of steps outside the Cox practice gym.
Bellfield and Mitchell checked them out before Monday’s practice. When the bulls first arrived, Stanback waved his red practice jersey at one.
“I would never try to ride one of those things,” said Stanback, glancing from the gym door back at Willis. “That one little bull right there, though. I can take him.”
Willis had just won five consecutive one-on-one games against Stanback, who won the sixth and final duel.
“Fatigue set in,” Willis said. “I let him win the last one. I felt sorry for him. Didn’t want to blow his confidence.”
Before practice, a huge, growling white bull got Willis’s full attention.
“Wow,” he said. “That’s the biggest, meanest thing I’ve ever seen. I think they’re fascinating. Big, fast, muscular animals are right up my alley.
“I don’t know about riding one. I would think twice. But if I had some lessons and got some training under my skin, I would definitely ride one of them.”
Adams came across a few stables while growing up in Houston, but he never had such a close look at them as he has since arriving in Las Vegas.
“Before, I never got close enough to touch one,” he said. “And DeShawn? He’s always saying he can do a lot of things. Riding one of those? I think he’s going overboard.
“That’s a lotta bull.”
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