Justin Rumford is being dragged across a dirt field, face down in a pile of mud and you-don’t-want-to-know-what-else, his exposed chest getting scraped and clawed by stains and clods.
This is the entertainment portion of Saturday afternoon, and the two-time Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Clown of the Year is performing a “dirt luge” for the first time at La Fiesta de los Vaqueros. He conceived of the idea on Friday, to celebrate the Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
This is not Sochi, Russia.
No, this is Tucson, where the sun is beating down on his bare chest, because now he’s flipped back over, and over, and over again, the luge not going so smoothly.
Rumford is loving every second of it, wearing two smiles. One is paint, one is real. Both are authentic.
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Rumford was born into a rodeo family, and embarked on a professional career as a steer wrestler after a successful college career at Northwestern Oklahoma State University.
By 2007, he was doing work for famous stock contractor Bennie Beutler, but still steer-wrestled despite suffering major injuries, including a busted knee and a broken shoulder blade.
On a lark one day in 2010, a friend asked him to clown at a rodeo in Pretty Prairie, Kan. He borrowed a barrel and a microphone, and walked away with a $1,000 check. His wife, Ashley, thought, “No entry fee, no mount money? Let’s do this!” She eventually left a job as a registered nurse to join him on the road.
In one of his first performances, he pulled off a perfect impersonation of his idol Chris Farley’s “Matt Foley” character. A star was born. He was named back-to-back PRCA Clown of the Year in 2012 and 2013 and Coors “Man in the Can” in 2013.
This comes as no surprise to those who’ve known him for a long time, including Tucson Rodeo general manager Gary Williams, who’s listened to Rumford crack up rooms full of cowboys at morning meetings over coffee and doughnuts for years.
“We had people show up early just to hear Justin hold court in there,” Williams said.
Rumford’s funny, but also smart. He knows how far to take a joke, how far to take a crowd. He’s not only aware of the audience, but of the dangers the profession carries — and not just from a luge-gone-awry bit.
Physically, he’s been able to mostly stay intact. He had a bull step inside the barrel on his shoulder in Albuquerque, but “it wasn’t too bad. Kinda messed up my golf swing.”
On Saturday, things are going relatively smoothly until the most dangerous part of the afternoon, the bull riding session.
After being chased by a cookies-and-cream bull with snot dripping out his massive nostrils, he is pummeled in his barrel by a snorting black Mack truck named Classic Vinyl, tossed like a toothpick in a tornado of horns.
On Saturday, they love him, as they have all week.
After the final performance, a couple like him so much that they approach him with a gift.
It’s not the first time.
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Last summer at a rodeo in Caldwell, Idaho, Rumford jokingly told the crowd, “Y’know, I’m having triplets, so if anybody feels bad for me, bring some diapers.”
They brought 8,000 diapers in four days.
The triplets — daughters Lola and Livi and son Bandy — were born prematurely and needed more than 60 days in a neonatal intensive-care unit before finally heading to the family’s Ponca City, Okla., home on Thanksgiving Day.
“We didn’t sleep for a month,” Rumford said. “We slept maybe two hours a day? Maybe. First month, I thought they were gonna kill us. You get upset. I just want to sleep! But then they’re crying and you go and pick them up, and you look at them, ‘These things are so awesome.’ ”
The Rumfords were ecstatic when they found out Ashley was pregnant at — naturally — a rodeo in Logandale, Nev., in April 2013. A month later, in the first major ultrasound, the doctor saw three heartbeats.
Justin crammed for the blessed event, scouring over “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” and “Triplets? Relax!”
Ask him if that’s really a book.
“It’s a book of lies,” he says.
But the pair is getting through it. They’re finally taking the healthy, happy babies on the road, starting next week in Austin. The Fuzion RV is turning into a day care-on-wheels.
“They have little onesies that say, ‘This IS my first rodeo!’ ” Ashley said. “It’s kind of like we’re going into uncharted territory here. I’m really not really sure how it’s going to go, but the plan is to go as a family.”
They’ve done it before. Worked out pretty well.
Just look at the smiles on Rumford’s face.
