Ezekiel Mitchell didn’t evolve into a rodeo cowboy. In his mind, he was born to ride bulls and broncs, and rope steers.
As a youngster, while other kids his age watched and perhaps dreamed of being the next Kobe Bryant or Tom Brady, Mitchell watched bull-riding videos and read magazine articles about nine-time world champion cowboy Ty Murray.
“I’ve always been a cowboy,” said Mitchell, 26, who calls Rockdale his hometown. “I feel like I can ride anything with four legs, and I’ve never thought of it as being dangerous. I just thought it was cool and what I wanted to do.”
Only a relative handful do so better than Mitchell, who last month competed in his fifth consecutive Professional Bull Riders (PBR) World Finals in Fort Worth.
Mitchell has been ranked as high as the top 15 and still is among the top 30 in the world, but has no immediate plans to slow down in his ultimate aim to become a world champion.
The cowboy spends much of the year on the road going from rodeo to rodeo across the country with his team, the Austin Gamblers. It’s a career that he loves and sprouted from the seeds planted in Rockdale. Mitchell split time between his mother in Baytown and his father, Danny, an equine dentist in Rockdale. He was riding horses at a young age and eventually graduated to bulls. He does team roping as “a hobby.”
“I spent every summer of my life in Rockdale until I finished high school,” he said. “Rockdale helped me become who I am. It has a special place in my heart.”
Mitchell quit football after his freshman year and played enough basketball to get him out of regular physical education classes. Rodeo was the focus. He earned a scholarship to compete for the rodeo team at Hill College where he rode bareback broncs and bulls to help him become an all-around college champion and qualify for the Nationa l Finals Rodeo. He left after one year because he felt ready for the professional circuit, and to allow another cowboy to get the rest of his scholarship.
H e ha s no regrets and says he hopes to get his associate degree someday.
In what most cons ider a high-risk endeavor, Mitchell, to this point, has escaped serious injury or, at least, what cowboys consider serious injuries that keep them out of commission for months.
“I’ve had three or four concus sion s, so I guess that’s serious,” he said.
“I’ve cut my ears, but it’s mostly cosmetic stuff. I did sprain my ankle.”
The physicality of the sport is less of a concern to him these days than the cerebral. “At this point in my PBR career it’s all about mindset ,” Mitchel l said. “They say bull riding is 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical. Now, for me, it’s 99 percent mental and 1 percent physical. “My body knows what it is supposed to do. Bull riding is a game of reaction. If you are thinking, it’s already too late.”
While he would much rather be a magnet for attention based solely on his skills atop an angry bovine, much of his notoriety comes from his skin color.
Mitchell is one of the few black cowboys on the circuit.
Be it human nature or just plain curiosity, race has repeatedly brought Mitchell into the national spotlight. He’s been the subject of an extensive spread in Gentleman’s Quarterly magazine, as well as in Garden & Gun. He’s been a guest on “Fox & Friends” and “Good Morning America.”
Only one black cowboy has ever won World Champion, Charlie Sampson in 1982. Mitchell doesn’t want to be known as the second black cowboy champion or a black champion. He just wants to be a champion.
“I’m just a bull rider out there like everybody else,” he said. “It just happens that I’m black, but I’m competing overall with everybody. I don’t really see race.”
Mitchell’s girlfriend, Jessie Moore, is a white barrel racer. They often spend holidays together and sometimes travel to competitions.
“(Her family) doesn’t see me as black and I don’t see them as white,” he said. “There’s so much diversity with the competition. I don’t feel out of place. We have a Canadian on the team and I don’t think he feels out of place. We’re just all bull riders, one big family that we see week in and week out.”
His current outlook is to continue the “grind” of rodeo life and earn as much money as he can with only a f leeting thought of his future. Mitchell is taking a bit of a break now, other than traveling with his team for events in Brazil soon.
“I try not to think about anything but staying as healthy as possible,” he said. “If I take care of myself the rest will take care of itself.”
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