Remember When . . . ?

Howdy, friends. It’s a balmy 45 degrees here in Big Sky Country, and we are still sending our condolences to our friends who were freezing their asses off thanks to the Polar Vortex. I have to confess that it was refreshing for once to be in the warm part of the country.

And I also have to confess that I literally could not bear to watch the event in Chicago, solely because of that awful limestone dirt they laid down in the arena. I watched maybe a dozen bulls slip and slide and fall, and I turned my attention to the Property Brothers instead. So I had to glean my knowledge of what happened from the PBR website, and we all know what happens when we go there.

One day last week, my good friend Kris DiLorenzo and I were commiserating about the PBR, and for some reason, and pretty much simultaneously, we both remembered that lovely press release that the PBR sent out in September 2010, announcing Dockery Clark had been hired as chief marketing officer. At the time, it was a big deal because as far as anyone outside the PBR knew, the executives had always been men up until that point. That sent me off on a Google search to see if Ms. Clark was still laboring in the PBR’s halls in Pueblo. Well, guess what—the answer is no.

But here’s what’s really interesting. According to her LinkedIn profile, Ms. Clark had worked for Bank of America for 11 years and then for Miller Coors for almost four before she move to the PBR. She was there a mere 11 months before she departed to become—wait for it—the chief of staff for the Democratic National Convention in Charlottesville.

I nearly fell off my barstool when I saw that. She may not be a DEMOCRAT, but I’d say the chances are just pretty damned good that she is.

And oh, Lord, the images this conjures up. I picture a hard-working professional woman, somebody with the track record to prove she could take the PBR to the next level and the chops to know how to do it, trying her darnedest to pull the sport into the mainstream. That, as we all know, is no small objective—the dudes who run the outfit have been aspiring to that for 20 years, and as far as I can tell, they have made no discernible headway. 

So here she is, faced with a Herculean task, and all while she was doubtless having to listen to endless assaults on our president’s character and that of anybody who doesn't think Tea Bagger members aren't in need of huge hits of psychotropic drugs and electroshock therapy.

Can’t you just hear it, boys and girls? Can’t you just imagine the obnoxious, adolescent, sexist, bigoted blather that the good ol’ boys handed out during her tenure? I don't mean such talk would necessarily have been aimed at her—I'm talking about the way those guys doubtless talk among themselves just any old time.

You can’t? Well, just tune into any PBR broadcast and listen to JDub for maybe five seconds, and you’ll get at least the watered-down, cleaned-up-for-primetime version. Or you can just go to a live event and listen to Flint for fifteen seconds.

And it also wouldn't surprise me to learn the good ol' boys slandered her while they were all hanging out in the men's room.

It's no wonder she jumped ship. And I would have given a pretty penny to be a fly on the wall when she handed in her resignation and the Powers That Be learned she was going to work for—President Barak Hussein Obama. A few of those boys might have even fainted dead away and awakened wondering what the world was coming to.

Of course, the national political convention comes but once every four years, so Ms. Clark has since moved on to work for a big marketing firm that is based in Chicago. I hope she sets the world on fire there. That will be one good way to show the PBR Powers That Be that they lost a keeper, somebody who could have made a serious difference to the perception of the sport. 

Godspeed, Dockery Clark. I wish you all the success in the world.