LINCOLN, Neb. — Make no mistake, Saturday night is one of those rare occasions when Dan Whitney, better known as Larry the Cable Guy, won't be pulling for the bull riders.
"I'm rooting for Koolie," Whitney said Friday from his Lancaster County home.
That's Mr. Koolie to everyone else. To Whitney, his bull is known simply as Koolie, as in "he's a cool dude."
"You sit around and you just think of cool names, like Mr. Koolie," Whitney said. "Mr. Koolie is just a cool name."
And Mr. Koolie is one bad bull. Consider that Whitney's bull has appeared in 37 Professional Bull Rider events and there have been just two qualified rides in 47 attempts — giving him a 95.7% buck-off rate — and he has a current streak of 26 straight buck-offs.
"That's an amazing stat," said Whitney, an avid sports fan. "It's like Ronald Acuna stealing 73 bases in a season. It's really good. It's the top of the top."
On Saturday night, Whitney will pay $10,000 to anyone who can successfully ride Mr. Koolie at the Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour event at Pinnacle Bank Arena.
"I don't think there's a cowboy out there that's going to get 10 grand because I don't think there's anybody who can ride him," Whitney said.
Still, that uncertainty, like Whitney himself, is good for the pro bull-riding tour, its commissioner and CEO says.
"We’re honored he’s part of the PBR family,” Sean Gleason said about Whitney in a written statement.
Whitney says he's hopeful people attend Saturday's event because pro bull riding is a sport worth watching and there are plenty of good rodeo athletes in Nebraska.
"It's something you should see," he said. "There are some very accomplished bull riders, and it's nice to showcase their abilities and get their names out there."
Whitney has always had a love for rodeo since growing up on an 80-acre farm in Pawnee City. After making it big with his comedy act, he began sponsoring rodeo athletes. He then took it a step further by forming the Git-R-Done rodeo team.
"I'd go to the National Finals Rodeo and I'd have two or three people competing," he said. "It was a lot of fun."