Rodeo bullfighter Josh Rivinius says there's a parallel between his job and his football days as a running back at Elgin-New Leipzig.

As a bullfighter he doesn't get hit as often. But now the opponents weigh almost a ton.

"In football there's contact all the time. In rodeo there isn't contact all the time, but when there is contact it's a lot more severe," said Rivinius, who you'll find in the arena during the Mandan Rodeo Days Rodeo.

Rivinius compares his job to that of a Secret Service agent. Rodeo clowns draw a lot of attention, while bullfighters sit on the fringes until a bull rider is done for the day. "We're invisible until we're needed," he said. "… We don't get a lot of recognition like the guys riding, but we're there when they need us."

And when a bullfighter is needed, he's needed urgently.

"Bullfighters protect the cowboy from the bull after the ride is over," Rivinius said. "… We're there for every ride, whether the ride is for 8 seconds or they get thrown off in 3.We try to get the bulls distracted to the rider can get away safely."

Rivinius, 30, was raised on a ranch four miles from Elgin and can hardly remember when rodeos weren't a part of his life.

"I was in Little Britches rodeo when I was growing up. When you're in a rodeo family you don't have much choice," Rivinius recalled. "Rodeo was probably the first sport Igot started in. … Iguess I was four or five (years of age).As soon as Icould ride a horse I was in kids' rodeos."

Rivinius went on to play football and basketball and run track at E-NL high school. He said football and rodeo were probably his best sports, but rodeo was the only one that was in his blood.

He was a steer wrestler and bareback rider through high school. After he graduated in 1996 he figured he could make rodeo his livelihood, but not as a competitor.

"After graduation I was rodeoing and getting beat up and I figured if I was getting beat up I might as well get paid for it,"he recalled. "… That's where it started. I liked the athletic part of it and it took off from there."

Step one in the process was to attend a bullfighting school. About nine months after high school graduation, Rivinius attended a bull riders and bullfighters school in Dickinson. There were 15 riders and two bullfighters at the school, which was run by a long-time Rivinius family friend, JasonKraft of Carson.

"There were two of us (bullfighters) and the other kid quit after the first day so there was only me," Rivinius recalled. "(Kraft) kind of took me under his wing and I learned a lot more than I would have if I'd been in a big class."

That summer, 1997, Rivinius got his first bullfighting jobs and he's been at it ever since. Nowadays he's working over 80 rodeos a year with two or three months off.

"Iget a few months off in the winter. Itry to be home for calving," he said.

Rivinius said he really enjoys the Mandan rodeo because it's as close as he gets to home in a jam-packed summer schedule. He was in Clear Lake, S.D., for three days last week and is off to Hamel, Minn., for three days next week.

"I'll go home after Mandan for three days and then take off again,"he said. "ThenI won't get back home again until the beginning of October."

Rivinius first appeared as a bullfighter at the Mandan rodeo in 1997, but he said his contact with the event goes back much farther.

"I've been here on the Fourth of July since I was a little kid," Rivinius said. "My dad (Doug) rodeoed here on the Fourth."

Like cowboys, bullfighters cram as many rodeos into the summer as possible. That's where the money is. Rivinius said he'll go from the Canadian border the the Mexican border in the course of a year, roaming as far east as Missouri and as far west as Wyoming.

"Most of the time I drive. There are two or three Ifly to, but most of it is driving and with the price of fuel nowadays it makes everything tough," Rivinius said.

Last year, Rivinius worked a milestone, the River City Rodeo inOmaha, Neb. The Omaha rodeo in late September is one of the key stops for cowboys hoping to qualify for the National Finals Rodeo.

"I was pretty honored to go (to Omaha) last year, Iguess,"Rivinius said."I get to go back this year."

Like clowns, bullfighters are easy to spot because of their face paint and strange clothing choices. But there's more to their apparel than meets the eye.

To keep body and soul together, Rivinius said he wears a flak jacket and a girdle similar to those used in football. Still, bumps and bruises are inevitable.

"It's a rough and tumble sport for sure," he noted. "… Unfortunately injuries come with this. You do the best you can to keep away from them and if it happens you try to get over them as quickly as you can."

The only time the rough and tumble really caught up to Rivinius was the spring of 2004 in a bull riding event near Mandan.

"I had a broken neck (five vertebrae) and I had a broken collar bone and two ribs. Ididn't know I'd broken my neck because the collar bone hurt the worst."

Amazingly, Rivinius missed only six weeks before returning.

"You don't get paid staying at home," he said. "This is what I want to do, so Ihad to get back as soon as Icould. … You know the risk. There's always that risk in this line of work. … It sucks when (injuries)happen, but you have to deal with it."

Rivinius said that possibility of injury is blanked out in the arena.

"When the chute gate opens that all goes away. I love my job and Ihave the opportunity to have fun with it,"Rivinius noted. "I've met some of the greatest people in this line of work."

It's the people part of the job that keeps Rivinius coming back year after year.

"When you help someone or save someone it's pretty rewarding from the personal aspect," he said. "Some people tell you that you did a good job and it makes you feel good, but you don't really depend on hearing that."