Sharp becomes first bull rider to cover all 10 bulls
No. 1
Hall of Fame bull rider Jim Sharp will remember Dec. 11, 1988, for as long as he lives. That was the day he forever etched his name in the history books by becoming the first bull rider in Wrangler National Finals Rodeo history to ride all 10 bulls. Sharp made it look easy, as he was known to do, won the average title and his first world championship in arguably the greatest performance in Wrangler NFR history. Just 23 years old at the time, Sharp held on to Beutler and Sons’ Skoal Cyclone for eight seconds in Round 10 to make history. His ride garnered just 79 points for a split of fourth place, but it gave the Kermit, Texas, cowboy so much more. “That was the best year I ever had in ’88 when I rode all 10 bulls,” said Sharp, a 2006 ProRodeo Hall of Fame inductee. “I’d never won the world, and that was my first world title. I won the NFR average and rode all 10 bulls. That was pretty exciting for me.” It was exciting for a packed house at the Thomas & Mack Center, as the more than 17,000 fans realized they had just witnessed something that had never been accomplished in ProRodeo. The 10th-round ride was Sharp’s second or third time covering the bull in 1988 and capped an amazing 10 days in Las Vegas for the Texan. “It was a smooth 10 days,” Sharp said. “That was when I was in my prime, so I rode pretty well. It wasn’t really that big of a deal back then that I rode all 10 bulls, because I’d ridden 10 bulls in a row many a times.” Once Sharp got past 1988 PRCA Bull of the Year Skoal’s Pacific Bell of the Western Rodeo Company in Round 1, he was off and running. “There probably were bulls that could buck me off, but I didn’t feel like there were,” Sharp said. “I felt like I could ride anything you could run in there.” Fellow Hall of Famer and traveling buddy Tuff Hedeman also covered all 10 of his bulls that year, but received a no-score in Round 4 after slapping the horn of Myers-Bar T Rodeo’s Hillstreet Skoal.
What makes Sharp’s accomplishment even more impressive is the fact that those 10 bulls in 1988 were part of 23 consecutive successful rides for the two-time world champion at the Wrangler NFR. He rode his last four in 1987 and covered his first nine in 1989 before being bucked off Hal Burns’ Mr. T in the 10th round. “I still remember that like it was yesterday,” Sharp said of his 1989 buck-off. “That was like the most disappointing thing in the world. That was probably the most disappointing ride of my life.” But he will forever have the perfect slate from 1988, and Sharp now realizes just how special his accomplishment is. “When I first did it, I didn’t think much about it, but now I realize that was a pretty good accomplishment,” he said. “I was the first one to do it, and it hasn’t been done but just a couple times after that.” The feat would be repeated by Norman Curry in 1990 – the year Sharp won his second gold buckle – and again in 1994 by Adriano Moraes, but has not been replicated since. There can only be one “first” for an achievement of that magnitude, and it will forever belong to Jim Sharp.
“I felt like I could ride anything you could run in there.”