Champion bull rider among linemen restoring power in Albany

ALBANY — You see it when Josh Reed talks about sitting astride a monstrous bull, waiting to give the go-ahead to turn the beast loose and set him off on “an 8-second ride that’s not like anything else you’ll ever experience in your life.” You see it in his eyes.

It’s a spark, a passion.

And it says, “We can talk about this all day, but you’ll never know what it’s like to ride a bull until you climb onto the back of one.”

Reed is a lineman now for Davis H. Elliott, a power contracting company based out of Lexington, Ky. He’s in Albany as part of a 48-person Elliott crew working to restore power to homes in the community in the wake of Hurricane Michael’s appearance Oct. 10. He’s a family man, a gentleman rancher who, when he’s not off working to bring power to communities like Albany, is at home with his beautiful wife and children.

But get Reed talking about his glory days in the Professional Bull Riders Association, 12 years worth of days that saw him win one world title and finish second in another glorious season, and you get a contact high from the adrenaline that no doubt surges through his body.

“My uncle rode bulls when I was growing up,” Reed, 38, and now retired from the PBR circuit after one final, devastating injury, said Sunday morning as he prepared to get back into a bucket truck and work on power lines around Albany. “We grew up on a dairy farm, and I kind of took after him. I’d ride any animal I could get on. I had two brothers and two cousins who also rode the cows on the farm, but I guess I’m the only one that stuck with it.”

In explaining the process of going from riding calves to sitting atop a raging bull that wants to throw him off its back and then stomp him into the ground — several tried to varying degrees of success in Reed’s career — the lineman equates the process to a baseball player making his way up the various levels to the Major Leagues.

“You start with the ‘Little Britches’ events — like Little League — then you have high school competition, college competition and local and small associations — much like baseball’s minor leagues,” Reed said. “And, like in moving up the ranks in baseball, the higher up the ladder you go, the bigger and meaner the bulls get.”

To compete on a professional level, competitors must purchase a permit that allows them to compete for prize money. The riders who are in the top 45 on the association’s money list are invited to compete on the PBR circuit, which makes its way across America and into Canada.

“Making it onto the PBR circuit is like making it to the Major Leagues,” Reed said. “I was lucky and blessed enough in 2003 to win a couple of challenger events to move up the ranks. When the No. 45 guy on the money list was injured, I was the first alternate and moved into his place.

“I ended up doing pretty good.”

A year later, Reed missed out on the PBR world title by $11.37. The next year, he won the title.

Lest anyone picture Reed and his fellow riders on the circuit as pampered, wannabe cowboys living a life of luxury while chasing after a boyhood pursuit, stand corrected as you read over the injuries that have exacted a toll on Reed and eventually forced him off the circuit:

• A broken nose, multiple broken arm, leg and other assorted bones;

• 65 staples in his head after a bull stomped on his body immediately after throwing Reed;

• Liver and kidney surgeries after being stomped by another bull; and

• Hernia surgeries after being trounced on by another angry cattle.

Starting to get the picture here? Well, there was also:

• An open-heart surgery after a bull threw Reed and stomped on his chest, breaking his sternum, his collarbone, six ribs, lacerating his aorta and detaching a number of veins from his heart.

• And, oh yeah, there was the injury three years ago in which a bull literally ripped his groin area loose from his pelvis, requiring surgery from which he was unable to fully recover.

“I always used to tell guys they were sissies when they said they couldn’t ride because of a groin injury,” Reed says ruefully. “But, man, that is a brutal injury. It’s one I couldn’t come back from.”

Reed is more fortunate than many athletes who have suffered similar fates.

He attended the University of Florida, studying high-voltage engineering, and when he graduated he worked with an uncle and brother on a line crew. He made his living on the bull-riding circuit from 2004-07, but when a judge told him that to maintain custody of his young daughter after he and his first wife divorced he would need “a job with a more steady source of income,” he got a job with Davis H. Elliott.

He continued to juggle the two careers successfully until his final, fateful injury.

“Man, I can’t even go and watch the riders yet; it hurts too much,” Reed said. “I’ve built a pro pulling truck that keeps me active; I hunt deer and we tend to everything on the farm. So I stay busy. But there is nothing I’ve ever experienced that gives you the same kind of adrenaline charge like you get when you’re sitting there in that box, you have a grip on the rope and you’re waiting to slide up and say ‘OK.’”

Reed, who with his crew has been in Albany since the day Michael hit, said he’s had a good experience in Albany, working to restore power in the community.

“Any time a community loses 90 percent of its system, it’s pretty bad,” he said. “We got the call from (Albany Utilities Director) Jimmy Norman and came on down this way before the storm hit. This has been one of the best places I’ve worked at, frankly. The people here are understanding, and they seem to genuinely be appreciative of what we do.

“The folks here have taken care of us — we’ve been places where we sleep in tents, have no running water, no showers — but they’ve been really great at making sure all our needs were met here.”

As Reed talks, it’s obvious his faith plays a big part in his life. He said the “Good Lord put me on this path I’m on.” And he’s even got a bit of advice for nonbelievers like the fan in Cincinnati who asked him why he prayed before each ride.

“This guy said he didn’t believe in God or the Devil or heaven and hell,” Reed said. “I told him I could help him believe. I said, ‘Here, take my chaps and spurs and gloves and get on the back of one of these bulls. I promise you, when he busts out of that chute, you’ll be praying, “Dear God, help me get out of this alive.” You get on one of those bulls, you’ll become a believer.”