Win or lose, it's rodeo

Inmates free to feel like real cowboys

Michael Dobie | Staff Correspondent

July 18, 2004

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ANGOLA, La. - Second in a series

From his perch on the top slat, Israel Ducre carefully lowers himself off the metal fence and onto the back of the bull. Instantly, 2,000 pounds of muscle and bone jerk violently beneath him. Ducre grabs the rope encircling the bull's girth and wraps the free end around his hand as the animal snorts and bucks in the narrow chute.

In a moment, eight gates will open and eight bulls will charge into the arena to the roar of 10,000 spectators. And eight men will try to hang on. Ducre has done this before. He's had his leg shattered by one bull. He's been thrown by many more. Right now, he's calm.

"I've been fooling with this for quite a few years now, and it's time for me to give it up," Ducre said a few hours earlier. "My family, they worry about me a lot."

There's no trace of worry on his face now. Just concentration, as he studies the bull. A black, wide-brimmed hat sits squarely on Ducre's head. His chaps are red leather, a green bull stitched on one leg. His shirt has the black and white stripes of prison.

Israel Ducre is serving a life sentence for murder in America's largest maximum-security prison, the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. He also is a competitor in one of the most unusual sporting events in the world -- the Angola Prison Rodeo.

They call it the Wildest Show in the South.

That might be an understatement.

For four Sundays in October and one in April, Angola is part rodeo, part carnival, part arts-and-crafts show, part county fair. Mixing classic rodeo competition with unique events such as "Convict Poker" and "Guts & Glory," it has become a magnet for fans all over the Southeast -- and, sometimes, the world.

To Angola's warden, the rodeo is rehabilitation for the inmates and a massive money-maker for the prison. To the inmate cowboys who ride and wrestle the horses and bulls, the Angola Prison Rodeo is a whole lot more.

For some, it's an escape from the grim monotony of prison life. For others, it's a shot at prize money that dwarfs what they earn from prison jobs. For most of them, the rodeo is a critical part of their self-worth and the only opportunity they have to connect, however briefly, with people from the outside -- many of whom think inmates are more like the animals they ride than human beings.

Ducre understands all that. But that's not what moves him. He's chasing two things. Ducre covets the title of all-around cowboy, a title to be decided on this final Sunday in October. He's also finally catching up with a fantasy formed years ago on his family's horse farm in rural Louisiana.

"I always wanted to be a bull rider, but my mom wouldn't let me," Ducre says. "So I got to ride some bulls when I got to Angola."

As he grips the rope, Ducre isn't thinking about dreams. Just hang on for eight seconds, he says to himself. Then the bell rings, the gate slides open, and Ducre and the bull are gone.

One last time

Morning breaks cool and blustery. A chill wind scatters the mist, shooing thickets of gray clouds across the sky. It is 8 a.m. The rodeo will not begin for six hours, but already 30 cars line the shoulder of the long, lonely road that leads into Angola.

Inside, the prison grounds are humming.

More than 800 inmates are setting up hobby-craft booths, where they will sell exquisite woodwork and leatherwork, colorful paintings, homemade jewelry, plants and hand-crafted canoes. Another group of inmates prepares food under big canvas tents. As fans pour onto the grounds, the exotic aromas of cracklins', po' boys and crawfish etouffee mingle with the more earthy smell of livestock. Children bounce on giant inflatables and careen down long slides in the shadow of a nearby guard tower. A country band named Most Wanted, one of the three inmate bands performing at the rodeo, begins tuning up on an outdoor stage.

Like the other top cowboys, Ducre has come to the arena early. He's standing in a labyrinth of fences and chutes jammed under one side of the stands, answering questions from eager journalists. For most of the year, Ducre is one of 5,108 inmates at Angola. At the rodeo, he's a celebrity and an advertisement for the prison's extensive sports and recreation program.

The media turnout is typical: reporters and photographers from newspapers in England, France and the United States, a travel magazine writer, two TV crews from Germany.