Brooklyn Sisters Coming Home for their New Bull Riding Team

Uber fans say “PBR is everything that makes America great”!

When Evelyn Robinson relayed the news to her big sister, Cynthia screamed and dropped the phone.

It wasn’t winning the lottery, but it sure felt like it.

A PBR team was coming to Brooklyn!

The ebullient sisters, who grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of New York City’s most populous borough, had relocated to San Jose in the late 1970’s where they would become ardent PBR fans, traveling to more than three dozen events in recent years. And now they’re pumped to head for the biggest one yet.

“Over the moon excited” for bull riding in Brooklyn and their own team to pull for, they are scheduled to fly in to attend the New York Mavericks debut homestand Friday and Saturday night in primo seats next to the bucking chutes.  

Their old neighborhood a few miles from Barclays Center is usually not associated with cowboys, although through television, two young girls explored rustic frontiers.

“We grew up on cowboys and were glued to all the westerns on TV: Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Rawhide, and Wagon Train; you name it, we watched them all,” Evelyn said. “And we had family who raised tobacco in North Carolina and Virginia, so there’s a connection to the energetic American spirit of cowboys that now comes with PBR. Cowboys come from everywhere. It’s a clean sport, there’s no politics. It’s just come and have a good time. It’s just everything we love about America.”

“It’s a family thing – you see children with their grandparents,” Cynthia added. “PBR honors the flag, prays, and recognizes the military – it’s all the things we support, a true American sport and experience.”

Their mother came from a southern family of eight siblings and their dad had four brothers and sisters. They still have relatives in Virginia and North Carolina, including a 97-year-old great aunt and cousins up and down the east coast.

“Family is super important to us, and PBR is a family atmosphere,” Evelyn said. “Everyone is kind and humble, from the bull riders and bull fighters to the stock contractors, from the PBR big wigs to the expert who takes care of the dirt. The environment is awesome. Everyone looks out for each other. Every event is next-level. We go home and think, nothing is going to top that! And then PBR does it again! We wind up talking about it all week long.”

Cynthia went west first in 1976 with her tennis-instructor husband. Evelyn followed from Brooklyn six years later. The sisters attended rodeos, particularly enjoying bareback and barrel racing. A dozen years ago, Evelyn came across former World Champion Guilherme riding a bull on CBS. Life would take a turn.

“I was hooked,” Evelyn said. “I thought it was absolutely insane – that someone would try to ride an animal that powerful and unpredictable. I’d come to learn these bull riders are genuine athletes, but it’s so different than sports where you can read the body language of your competitor. The bulls are unreadable; yet they’re thinking, with their own strategies. They are so intriguing to me – powerful, fantastic athletes in their own right.”

Twisted Steel / Ryan Tonry

She learned about the bulls and developed her favorites: Little Yellow Jacket, Asteroid, Bushwacker, Bruiser, Pearl Harbor, Smooth Operator, Cool Whip, Man Hater, and Dana White’s Twisted Steel. 

“When you see these athletes up close – they’re giant muscles with horns, but they’re agile and they’re smart. You can see them thinking. These are not dumb animals you put a rope on. And they get great care, just living the life. Their owners give them massages and hydrotherapy.  They worry about them like their children.”

Ask the sisters about their favorite riders, and they’ll say, “the guys who are humble and appreciate the fans…pretty much all of them!”

They’ll talk about the Americans, and segue into the Brazilians, the Australians, the Canadians, winding up with the First Nation riders – a list of down-to-earth good guys too long to print here.

Evelyn says she “recruited” her sister to watch the sport on TV. The duo separated by 16 months attended PBR Oakland in 2013. In San Jose, they saw a young, confident Cooper Davis win.

“This was way too cool. After that we were off and running,” Evelyn remembered. “TV is great, but we said, ‘We have to go live’.”

And so, it was off to cities like Albuquerque, Anaheim, Bismarck, Billings, Fort Worth, Las Vegas, Nashville, New York City, Oakland, and Sioux Falls.

After the global pandemic shut down live sports in March 2020, PBR was planning its comeback. The sisters decided that when fans would be allowed back in the arena, they’d be there cheering on their favorite cowboys and bulls. As soon as PBR announced a mid-July Sioux Falls date with a new concept called “pod seating” to become the first sport hosting fans again, they booked their trip to South Dakota.

“We were not at all nervous,” Evelyn said. “I felt really confident with PBR’s safety measures.  We felt completely safe and comfortable and decided to get our pod seats for the next two events in Bismarck and Billings.”

Bull Stock Media

In South Dakota, they would hang out with Gov. Kristi Noem. The firebrand rising GOP star had recently hosted President Trump at Mt. Rushmore, then enthusiastically opened doors to blaze the trail for PBR to be first to again welcome fans inside the arena at the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center. Gov. Noem brought her own horse to ride the American flag triumphantly onto the dirt, ushering in the return of ticketed sporting events.

“We have a few hundred country concerts under our belts,” Cynthia explained. “We know a lot of floor people. If you’re in with the production guys and the dirt guy, you can meet just about anyone.”

While relationships make things happen, it doesn’t hurt to opt for the best seats in the house through PBR Elite Seats.

“The bulls are kicking up the dirt, and it comes up and hits you. I just love it,” Evelyn says. “That kind of up-close-and-personal experience just amplifies how awesome the sport is.”

The sisters take a bit of dirt back from every arena they visit, put it in tube, and label it.

Bull Stock Media

When PBR planned to end the 2020 season atop the USS Lexington docked in Corpus Christi, Texas – “a giant middle finger to COVID” CEO and Commissioner Sean Gleason declared – they purchased premium seats alongside only 500 fans onboard the iconic aircraft carrier.

They are fortunate to have jobs that pay a nice salary and allow for personal travel.

“To be honest, we’d do them all if we could,” Evelyn said. “I really believe PBR represents all that’s good going on in America.  It’s a nice respite from the crazy in the world to experience what PBR stands for and to be with humble, kind, decent salt-of-the-earth folks. You couldn’t ask for nicer people to spend a weekend with.”

They’ve made many friends at events. After the COVID-comeback, they paired up with a couple from Texas in a four-person pod. Winding up at a barbecue with bull stock contractor Chad Berger, they became close with Elmer Blackbird, a Native who sent them Lakota (Sioux) phrases to learn.

They’ve had unforgettable adventures, most notably eight days spent marooned in Del Rio while attending their first event of the 2021 season, stranded in the Texas-Mexico border town after an historic winter storm had swept in, canceling the second half of the bull riding weekend. Power was out, and the water was no longer running. Getting out of town safely was nearly impossible for many fans and crew.

They ate gas station food and brought pool water in garbage cans up to their room at the Ramada Hotel.

Most would consider this travel odyssey a nightmarish debacle to complain about whenever a certain sport is mentioned.

They turned the ordeal into a fun adventure, befriending hotel staff and locals with a perpetually sunny attitude showing how to make the best of every day given to us, roll with the punches, and find silver linings in every dark cloud.

When Evelyn saw the news that PBR’s new league would expand from eight to 10 teams, one near her old home, she did a double take.

“I thought I read it wrong at first. You mean, Brooklyn, New York?” she said.

Team bull riding took some getting used to.

“It was tough seeing our favorite riders spread across teams,” she explained. “They’re all winners as far as we’re concerned. It’s just about who gets the golden ticket at the end of the season.”

The sisters have come to appreciate young, untested riders drafted by the teams to ride alongside familiar veterans like Cooper Davis, now competing for the Carolina Cowboys, and mentored by legends in the sport.

“What a great opportunity for the guys coming up to be around the old school dudes like Guilherme (Marchi, assistant coach of the Kansas City Outlaws) and Adriano (Moraes, assistant coach of the Austin Gamblers),” Evelyn said. “I love watching J.B. (Mauney) coaching Oklahoma. We go from the poker face to seeing J.B. smile. PBR keeps thinking of how to make this more exciting and engaging.”

The Robinson sisters will hop a red eye from California to New York, arriving Friday morning. At the arena, they’ll make a beeline to the merchandise truck, picking up their New York Mavericks jerseys.

“We live in California, but our roots are in Brooklyn,” Evelyn said. “That’s always home. And this is our home team.”