the mommy avenger

I have to tell you something first: I did not expect a bull riding event to make me cry a little. And yet here we are, the day after, still talking about it over breakfast, still pulling up photos, still saying “remember when the parachutes came down” to each other like we need to convince ourselves it actually happened. PBR Space Cowboys, presented by the U.S. Space Force, took over Falcon Stadium at the United States Air Force Academy yesterday, and friends, this was not just a bull riding event. This was 30,000 of us standing shoulder to shoulder kicking off the summer of America’s 250th birthday in the most over-the-top, patriotic, goosebumps-on-your-arms way possible.

If you are anywhere near Colorado Springs and you let this one pass you by, I am so sorry, because this is exactly the kind of day our family is going to be talking about for years.

A Full Day Before the Sun Even Went Down

This was never going to be a show-up-right-before-it-starts kind of event, and PBR clearly knew that. Parking lots opened at 2 p.m., and the Launch Pad — the interactive fan zone out front — was open right alongside it until 6 p.m. People wandered through letting the kids get their faces painted, watched a Monster Energy Holeshot demo, stood in line for rider autographs, and let the kids build balloon animals while we people-watched in a sea of red, white, and blue. There was a “Letters to Space” station where you could write a personal message to be launched on an upcoming Space Force mission, and a walk-through called Level 62 that simulates what it’s actually like to train as a Guardian. We are still talking about that one.

By the time we made our way to our seats, it did not feel like we were arriving early for a show. It felt like we had already been at one for hours.

Chris Janson Opened It Up, and the Stadium Was Already On Its Feet

At 6 p.m., Chris Janson took the stage for the opening concert, and this is where it stopped feeling like a pre-show and started feeling like the real thing. He played a tight, high-energy set that had 30,000 people on their feet before the bulls had even come out of the chutes, and honestly, that is no small feat in a stadium that size. It set exactly the right tone — loud, proud, full of that big-stadium country energy — and by the time he wrapped up, the whole place was primed and ready for what came next.

The Bull Riding Itself Was Unlike Anything I’ve Seen

Here is what made this different from a standard PBR stop: this was a three-team format, with 30 of the best bull riders in the world split into squads representing different Space Force operational units — Star Command in blue, Combat Forces in red, and Space Systems in white. Each bull even got a ceremonial military nickname for the night, and honorary coaches, actual military personnel, led their teams from atop the chutes. It gave the whole competition this added layer of meaning that you just do not get at a regular event.

Before a single bull was let out of the chute, 33 cadets — 29 from the Air Force and 4 from the Space Force — stood on that dirt and took the oath of service, right there in front of all of us. I will be honest, that moment alone was worth the ticket price. Thirty thousand people went dead silent and then erupted, and it was amazing.

The competition itself did not disappoint either. Star Command came out of the gate dominating, converting five of their first ten rides, and they carried that momentum all the way to a head-to-head championship round against Combat Forces. It came down to Lucas Divino, the team’s captain, who needed to go the distance to seal the win — and he did, scoring an 88.5 on a bull fittingly named Dirty South to clinch the 88.5-0 victory. What got me, though, was what he said to the crowd afterward. Divino is a Brazilian native who recently became a U.S. citizen, and standing there in that stadium, on Space Force soil, on the eve of America’s 250th, he talked about chasing his dream of citizenship and putting God at the center of it. You could not have scripted a more fitting champion for the night.

Honestly, watching this be a $250,000 purse, sold-out, full-on team competition, and not just a flashy sideshow, made it clear this was a serious sporting event wrapped inside an enormous patriotic celebration. Both things were true at once, and somehow neither one took away from the other.

The Sheer Patriotic Spectacle of It All

This is the part that is genuinely hard to put into words. Throughout the night, there was a flyover that set the tone the second it roared overhead, and then — this is the moment everyone around us gasped at — a parachute team dropped directly into the arena. Not flew over. Dropped in, right onto the dirt, in front of all of us. There were surprise military tributes honoring active-duty service members and veterans that had grown men around us standing with their hands over their hearts, completely silent.

And then, to close the night, a massive drone show lit up the entire Colorado sky above Falcon Stadium, paired with fireworks. I have seen fireworks shows. I have seen drone shows. I have never seen anything quite like watching both of them stack on top of each other above a stadium full of people who had just spent the last several hours honoring service members, becoming citizens, and singing along to country music together. It was patriotism with absolutely nothing held back, and somehow it never once felt like too much.

Tim McGraw Closed the Night, and It Was Pure Electricity

Just when we thought the night had already given us everything it had, the drone show faded and Tim McGraw walked out for a full headline concert. After everything that had already happened — the cadets, the bulls, the parachutes, the drones — I genuinely did not know how a concert was going to top it. It did not need to top it. It was the perfect final note. McGraw had that entire stadium, every single section, singing back every word, and there is something about hearing tens of thousands of voices carry a country song across a stadium built into the foot of the mountains that I am not sure I will ever fully describe properly. We were tired, we were sunburned, our feet hurt, and not one of us wanted it to end.

Why This Was the Perfect Way to Kick Off the Summer

We have a lot of celebrations ahead of us this year. America’s 250th birthday is going to be marked in a hundred different ways between now and July, but I cannot imagine many of them topping what Falcon Stadium gave us yesterday. This was not a passive event where you sit and watch something happen. This was 30,000 strangers becoming, just for one night, one very loud, very proud community — cheering for cadets taking an oath, cheering for a man who fought to become a citizen of this country, cheering for the service members who keep watch over us in ways most of us never see.

We left that stadium exhausted in the very best way, already talking about next year, already trying to describe it to people who weren’t there and knowing we were not doing it justice. If PBR Space Cowboys comes back to Falcon Stadium, do whatever you have to do to be there. This is the kind of night that reminds you why you’re proud to call this country home — and what a way to kick off a summer of celebrating 250 years of it.