Jessica Bliss

jbliss@tennessean.com

PARIS, Tenn. — The bone in his right forearm. Snapped.

His left hand, almost always swollen and bruised. Smashed.

The ligament in his knee. Ripped.

His pelvis. Separated.

Lungs. Punctured.

Brain. Bashed to the point of blackout.

No matter how many times Cody Nance could have died being thrust off or crushed by a nearly one-ton bull, he still straddles the bowed back of the beast. For this Tennessee boy-turned-professional bull rider, those coveted eight seconds for which he fights are a show of faith and a defiance of fear.

"It gets ahold of you," he says, his blue eyes shining under the brim of his white hat.

"Whether it costs you your life or not."

****

Life for a 28-year-old from Paris, Tenn., could seem slow and easy.

If not for the bulls.

Nance grew up in a place best known for "The World's Biggest Fish Fry." A city 80 miles northwest of Nashville, up along the Tennessee-Kentucky border, it lures people with the nearby lakes.

His father helped build the 60-foot tall replica of the Eiffel Tower in the city's center. But the younger Nance had more cowboy than construction in him.

Around him on the outskirts of the county, pastures stretched deep and wide, rippling with corn stalks and tall grass. At home on his 13-acre farm, his dad trained trail horses and had a farrier business.

He began riding at 14 with the help of his uncle and stepfather, who judged rodeos. His mother didn't like it.

"I did not want him to ride," Retha Burns says. But her husband convinced her that once her son got bucked off a few times, that would be the end of it. A scary childhood fantasy fulfilled.

It didn't happen that way.

****

Nance was too big to start on calves or steer, as some young riders do. His first mount came on the back of a full-grown male — a horn-less bull named Black Racer.

With his legs saddled across the bull's broad middle, Nance knew how to ride, but not how to get off. He slid toward the butt, and the animal's bucking legs launched him. He flew sky high.

"I couldn't wait to get on my next one," he says.

He rode twice more that first night, a little red bull and a brown one with down-pointing horns and a patch of white on his face. That one, Shazam, tore the bull rope from his hand.

He went to rodeo school at Lazy S Rodeo Company the next weekend, setting him up for a career on the Professional Bull Riders circuit that began with Rookie of the Year honors.

"I was scared to death," his mom remembers of those early years. "That’s all I can say."

***

What would ever possess a boy to be whipped off such an animal, his head bouncing like a bobblehead's, his body exposed to rib-crushing blows of a bull's horns or hooves?

It sounds macho. Braggadocio. An attention-seeking move for the high of an adrenaline rush.

It may be for some.

But, more than a decade after his first ride, Nance appears anything but that.

Bathed in the amber glow of a lamp in the den of his Paris home, reflecting on the path that launched a lucrative professional career, he is unpretentious. Almost withdrawn.

The walls are filled with mementos of his career. Competition bibs and a cowhide. Ropes and rodeo hats. Framed photos of bulls, a unique story with every one.

"Fear tries to creep in and get you every once in a while," Nance says. "Just like anger or disbelief.

... But God said he didn't give us the spirit of fear, so I try not to accept it."

That kind of faith has gotten Nance through a lot.

Before he was a bull rider, he was a country boy with a sometimes rocky home life and a passion.

He put everything he had into finding he way back into a ring. Maybe being on the back of the bull was his best way to escape.

But travel and competition entry fees weren't cheap.

He worked odd jobs hauling hay, cutting fence posts, washing vehicles on a used car lot, bagging groceries and working for a plumbing and electricity company crawling under houses and through attics running wires. "I was like their mouse," he jokes.

Every dollar he put toward bull riding.

"He worked really hard to get where he was at," his mom says. "It wasn’t given to him.

"We didn’t have it to give to be honest."

At 18, he left home and got a job building guard rails while he trained for bull riding. He lived in a small room in a walking horse barn in Shelbyville, Tenn. That's when he got into meth and coke. But the drugs didn't hold him long.

One day, he says, he picked up a bible and quit. Just like that.

"He's not anything like that anymore," his mother says. "He knows there's something better."

He had another drug to satisfy him — adrenaline.

****

When he tightens the bull rope around his left hand and shifts his hips along the ridge of the bull's spine, Nance appreciates the heft of the aggressive animal beneath him.

He anticipates the connection.

Every bull feels different. They have different levels of bulk and athleticism. Some bulls buck harder than others. "Just like people, they are uniquely made," Nance says.

They have sensitivity enough to flick off a fly by moving a specific patch of skin; they can feel a riders' weight — and every flex or flinch.

That makes every ride different. And every one a new thrill.

"You have got to trust yourself," Nance says.

Nance weighs 170 pounds, plus the weight of a championship metal belt buckle and the 10-gallon hat that pushes down the tips of his ears and shades his mustached upper lip.

The bulls he rides can weigh up to 2,000 pounds — more than 11 times his size.

And when angered, they don't mess around.

Nance's worst injury came on Feb. 3, 2008. A bull stepped on his chest while in a practice pen in North Carolina. He broke two ribs. One went in his lung. He was in the hospital for 14 days, full of chest tubes.

Three weeks after he got out, he was back riding.

"I was blessed if that's my worst," he says.

He went on to win rookie of the year honors on the Professional Bull Riders circuit the following year. Even the best bull riders get bucked off half of the time.

He stayed on more than 61 percent of his rides that year, bringing home $147,385.54 in winnings. In 2013, he had his most lucrative year collecting $292,478.62 in winnings. And his career continues. Last year, he rode 140 bulls.

After weeks on the road, he is back home in Paris now, working the 11 bulls on his own farm, caring for the goats and dog and the horse his three kids call Old Lady.

He will relax for a while, recovering from sore hips, letting his bruised and swollen hand mend.

As he prepares to compete in the upcoming Music City Knockout at Bridgestone Arena Aug. 19 and 20, he may jump on the spring-loaded practice mount a family member built out of some metal and an old barrel. It mimics the movement of a bull. But nothing will ever compare.

On the back of the beast, the seconds stretch on like a slow-motion reel. Every millisecond counts.

He must put himself in motion. Take away the bull's fire. Meet him where he goes, jump for jump.

And when he falls, he must embrace it.

There's no thinking about it.

There's just doing it.

Reach Jessica Bliss at 615-259-8253 and on Twitter @jlbliss.

Watch Cody Nance and the Professional Bull Riders compete

What: Music City Knockout

When: 8 p.m., Aug. 19; and 7 p.m.. Aug. 20

Where: Bridgestone Arena (501 Broadway, Nashville)

Tickets: $59.75, $81.75 and $110 at ticketmaster.com