Making of “The Champ”
Creation of legendary work of art was legendary in itself
by Kevin Carmody
Quite literally, Edd Hayes brushed off persuasions to take up drawing and painting as a full-time endeavor. Ultimately, the former journeyman carpenter, oilfield worker, corporate salesman and PRCA cowboy did the next best thing.
He put down his pencils and paintbrushes. A flat platform wasn’t his forum. Three-dimensional art, he found, was more to his liking.
He began making sculptures. Years later, he reunited with rodeo legend Casey Tibbs, a cowboy whom Hayes had met as a kid. In 1989, the ProRodeo Hall of Fame and Museum of the American Cowboy commissioned Hayes, a native of Midland, Texas, now living in the Houston area, to sculpt a larger-than-life monument to rodeo’s greatest champion.
There was one catch. Because of Tibbs’ declining health – he was dying of bone cancer – Hayes only had 140 days to mold nearly 5,000 pounds of clay into two classics in one: Tibbs, the six-time world champion saddle bronc rider, aboard the famed Beutler Brothers steed Necktie.
Today, it’s the showpiece of the Hall and a landmark visible from either side of Interstate 25 in Colorado Springs, Colo. But the story of its creation, complete with blunders, close calls, frustration and complete joy, is perhaps as legendary as the rider himself.
“That was my first monument, and I really didn’t know what to expect,” said Hayes, who recently visited his works of art for cleaning and maintenance, which consisting of waxing the sculptures to restore their brilliance and remove imperfections that come with the elements, both man-made and otherwise. “We had a lot of mishaps, right up to the unveiling. It’s pretty funny when I think about it now.”
Cowboy roots
Hayes, 61, who fondly remembers spending his childhood days in West Texas riding in the annual rodeo parade and meeting cowboys such as Guy Weeks and Tibbs at Pegoda Park, was a cowboy first. He competed in junior rodeos as a roughstock rider and joined the PRCA in his mid-20s as a steer wrestler.
After a stint in the Navy after graduation from Tivy High School in Kerrville, Texas, Hayes went into a variety of job fields, starting with sales as a territory representative for a feed company in Oklahoma. One day, he told his wife he was going to the hobby shop to buy an oil painting set.
“She thought I was crazy,” Hayes said.
Hayes started painting as a hobby, starting in 1977. He retired from wrestling steers and turned to sculpting in 1981.
He renewed acquaintances with Tibbs at a trade show at the 1984 National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. Hayes’ sculptures impressed Tibbs, so the champion requested a bronze of himself. The next year, Hayes introduced his bronze, which wasn’t liked only by Tibbs, who even hand-signed the bronze; the edition was sold out in the first years it was on the market.
“He liked my work,” Hayes said. “I had quite a few bronzes on the market, and Casey came walking up to our booth in Oklahoma City. He asked if I would create a bronze of him.”
A true race against time
By the summer of 1989, Tibbs, whose record of six saddle bronc riding world titles wasn’t matched until 2004 when Dan Mortensen won his sixth, was gravely ill. The ProRodeo Hall of Fame had plans for a monument and sought bids nationwide for an artist who could create a work of art that would capture the essence of Tibbs.
Hayes would call it “The Champ.”
Mike Warner, then the Hall’s director, already knew of Hayes’ earlier, much smaller replica. This time, the Hall wanted something much bigger to use as its showpiece. The only problem, however, was getting it commissioned, completed and unveiled so Tibbs could personally see it before he passed.
Hayes got the call in March 1989. On Aug. 10, the veil was lifted.
But a lot happened in the time between, some 140 days of angst, joy, fear and comedy.
Hayes produced the monument at a foundry in Minturn, Colo., near the resort town of Vail. Before that, Hayes, Tibbs and country legend Charlie Daniels held a benefit in Beverly Hills, Calif. On April 12, the $250-a-plate dinner got the project off the ground. From Beverly Hills, Tibbs joined Hayes in Mintern, approving each step of the process for historical accuracy.
He even asked Hayes to help him out a little.
“He wanted his toes turned out more,” said Hayes, referring to the classic spurring motion where the rider synchronizes with the animal’s bucking style. “In the picture I had – from Burwell, Neb., in 1958 – I could only see the right-hand side. I changed that, and he personally thanked me for that.”
During construction of the horse’s head, the wooden structure holding the head collapsed, causing Hayes to start over with 500 lbs of clay.
That was far from the only moment of misfortune.
With such a large project – the monument was a bronze that was more than 1½ life-size, standing 27 feet tall and ultimately weighing some 5,000 lbs – the rider and horse were formed in different parts of the foundry. So, when Tibbs’ body was in one corner and the horse in the other, Hayes was hoping the two would fit together.
It didn’t, not at first.
“We went back and forth,” Hayes said. “The body was too big for the saddle, so we trimmed off the horse. When that didn’t work, we had to chunk the whole thing. There was 1,000 lbs of clay in that one.”
Hayes got the proportions right between Tibbs and Necktie. Then the tail fell off. There went another 400 lbs. of clay.
One particular detail Tibbs didn’t want overlooked was the amount of rein he held in his hand. It was unusually long when compared to other bronc riders, and Hayes added an extra 18 inches of rein to the mold.
That’s where the story becomes even more interesting.
When the monument was completed, put in a specially made trailer and sent on its way to Colorado Springs, that extra rein became more of a problem than a point of detail. Laying down in the trailer, the rein was the highest part of the monument as it made its way east on Interstate 70. That is, until it reached the Eisenhower Tunnel.
With its extra height, the monument was too tall to fit through the tunnel, so the trip took a detour through the Loveland Pass, then to its ultimate destination.
Destination: ProRodeo Hall of Fame
“The Champ” arrived in Colorado Springs in time to be put in place by a large crane. On Aug. 10, rodeo dignitaries and celebrities alike applauded the unveiling of the monument dedicated to one of rodeo’s greatest heroes, in failing health but on-hand, in his trademark purple shirt accompanied by a purple pen from which he’s sign autographs afterward.
The comedy of errors wasn’t done yet, though.
“When they unveiled it, four or five guys with ropes were holding a huge tarp with several helium balloons,” Hayes said. “The tarp got so high that one fellow let go of the rope, and it fell between the fingers of Casey’s extended hand and made a big granny knot between his fingers. They were waving the crane operator off before the knot got through his fingers.
“The operator kept going. In the process, that actually lifted the bronze up six to eight inches. The knot broke off, and it sounded like a .22 caliber gun going off. The bronze shook I’d say for four or five minutes afterward.”
A crowd of 1,200 applauded as “The Champ” was unveiled. Finally, 140 days and nights of hard work – and rework – came to fruition.
Tibbs came to the microphone for his now-famous quote.
“Thank you for making me look good,” he said. “Hell, I was good.”
Except Hayes remembered a different version, but holds no hard feelings now.
“He personally thanked me in his address,” Hays said. “He said ‘Thank you Edd Hayes for making me look good’ … Later on, the quote was inscribed in the granite, and I blew it off and didn’t say anything. Later on, it haunted me. They changed history, and it bothered me some. But it’s water under the bridge now.”
Before the bronze was finished, Hayes installed a bronze heart inside Tibbs’ chest, inscribed with the words: “Ride Cowboy Ride.” While the heart was intended, one piece of sculpting gear was inadvertently left behind, inside the monument. It was after the pieces were welded together that Hayes realized the mistake.
To this day, only a handful of people know what else lies inside “The Champ.”
And Hayes isn’t telling, either.
Seventeen years after its creation, “The Champ” remains the world’s largest equine sculpture in the cantilever position – attached or supported at only one end.
Tibbs died on Jan. 12, 1990, at the age of 60. Thanks to Hayes, his legacy continues to live on.
Worldly acclaim
That was just the tip of the sculptural iceberg for Hayes, although he didn’t get flooded with proposals right away. But they did come. Today, Hayes is the creator of 11 bronzes inside the ProRodeo Hall of Fame, along with two more monuments outside the museum.
Other bronze sculptures by Hayes can be found in corporate and private collections around the world, as well as in permanent collections of major museums in several states and even Russia. Two of Hayes’ bronzes that were in the first George H.W. Bush White House are now in the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas.
In November, his latest creation, Texas’ first monument to World War II, will be dedicated in the north Texas city of Gainesville at the Texas welcome center off Interstate 35. In 1998, Hayes was named the “Official Texas State Sculptor” by the Texas State Senate.
This, all after art found him.
“Art has taken me places I’ve never dreamed of,” Hayes said. “I’m really honored.”
