You can't stop someone who never stops.
And good luck with this guy, because Joe Beaver jumps out of bed every day trotting toward the next round of challenges. Job One right now is a career comeback of big-league proportions.
After sitting out the entire 2007 rodeo season following hip surgery the end of '06 (a few short days after he won the all-around at the 2006 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo), the snickers of the naysayers sound so familiar to me. They're reminiscent of those that followed fellow ProRodeo Hall of Famer Ty Murray around for a while after surgeries on both knees and shoulders; during his quest to become the only seven-time World Champion All-Around Cowboy in Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association history. "Ty's toast," the Doubting Douglases declared. He quietly put his head down, rehabbed 'til it hurt and proved them all wrong.
Now it's Joe's turn, and the Negative Nellies are again out in full force. At 42, it's their not-so-humble opinion that he's too old, too fat, too slow. They're all blow. And they obviously don't know Joe.
Is he hampered by the hip, and the aches and pains felt by every middle-aged professional athlete who ever suited up? Yes. But if you think that's enough to stop Joe B, you've grossly underestimated the competitive core of this cowboy's soul.
"I've had to regroup and change a couple things, because my hip won't do what it used to do," explained the talented Texan, who's closing in on $3 million in PRCA career earnings and has, in fact, won more than any other cowboy in the history of this game. "But it won't keep me from winning. That's going to take more than my hip."
It always does. There are too many examples-from busted bones to stretched, strained and snapped ligaments-to count when you're talking about this five-time World Champion Tie-Down Roper, who's one of the rare few who won his first gold buckle simultaneously with PRCA Rookie of the Year honors in 1985. So let's just look at one. Did you know Joe won his second of three World All-Around Cowboy Crowns in 1996 with a broken wrist? Stuff like that rarely makes the fine print in the record books, but it's worth repeating.
The barrier rope blew back over his neck and body in the team roping at the rodeo in Eugene, Ore. in the middle of June, and jerked Joe straight out the back and off his horse. He knew when he hit the ground that his left wrist was broken, and begged that they bring the steer right back before the swelling kicked in (unlike a normal person who'd have headed straight for the hospital). But they waited until after the rodeo.
He couldn't bend his wrist or close his hand, so his old buddy Mike Arnold (Joe calls him "my brother from another mother; we've been running together since I was 12 and he was 16") helped him improvise using a roll of black tape. They taped his three coils together, then stuck the bundle between the two fingers they could pry apart. They shortened up his reins, and Joe wedged them in the crook of his arm. Talk about "True Grit."
