Marty Martak is unique among bullfighters for a couple of reasons.
First, he was never a bullrider. Almost 90 percent of those who used to be known as rodeo clowns — who put on face paint and funny clothes and work to help a cowboy get out of an arena after a ride — are former bullriders themselves.
Second, he's a single father who's trying to balance raising a son while doing a job he's wanted to do since he was a kid himself.
How many bullfighters are getting ready to take on an ornery one-ton foe after fighting with a toddler about a nap? How many athletes get a good-luck kiss from a pint-size cowboy before they enter the arena?
"Sometimes it gets hard on days when he doesn't want to nap
or get ready to come, and I'm trying to clear my mind," he said. "But it's well worth it. I've watched a lot of kids grow up around rodeo, and they're more mature. They get a whole different outlook on life."
However, Martak said Monday night that wrestling match has become too much to bear, and he made official something he's been thinking about for months. One of Utah's most popular bullfighters said he'll retire after Tuesday's Days of '47 Rodeo performance.
"Harmon got me into this rodeo," he said of Flip Harmon, the Days of '47 Rodeo's first chairman, "and I thought it would be the best one to retire from."
Martak's decision comes on the heels of two outstanding performances where he's been hit by bulls as he helped cowboys to safety. Saturday night he was hit in the head by the hind legs of a bull, and in front of a record Delta Center rodeo crowd of 13,000 Monday night, he got a ride on Coffee Time's head as he jumped in front of fallen French bullrider Come Bouvier.
Now the decision is made, Martak says it's final.
"This is the hardest decision I've ever had to make," he said. "But this little guy is more important than anything else."
That "little guy" is Martak's 4-year-old son, Jordan Lewis Martak. The single father got custody of his son about two years ago and had been taking him to rodeos with him. He said he was able to do it because of the family-like support of rodeo athletes and officials.
"The people who run them, work at them, they're my friends and they help me," he said. "It's one of the most family-built sports there is."
The Price native who now lives in Spanish Fork said he has accomplished all he has wanted in his career. He's been to the Dodge finals twice and the Wilderness Circuit Finals five times in his eight-year professional career.
"I'm getting to the point I'd rather raise my son," said Martak, who will continue to work as a car salesman in Spanish Fork. "I'd give up rodeo for him in a heartbeat. . . . The way this world is, if you don't do it for them, no one else will."
Martak, 31, is popular at local rodeos not just because he's talented but because he is a local. He got his first taste of rodeo when he was just a small child at the very same rodeo that will be his last as a bullfighter.
"When you're a kid, you don't look at the danger aspect," he said of his childhood impressions.
Fear usually doesn't enter into his mind when he's in the arena, but sometimes he shakes his head afterward. His son has the same adoration for his father's chosen profession, and that's why he hasn't told Jordan about his decision yet.
"He wants me to jump every bull I possibly see," said Martak of a trick the bullfighters try to do each night at the end of the rodeo. "He keeps me going just as much as anything. He jokes about a lot of it."
He even ribs his father about his favorite bull — Candyman — a bull Martak tried to jump unsuccessfully.
"Candyman will be here," the child told his father on the way to the rodeo the other night. "Are you scared?"
And then when his father said no, Jordan smiled and said, "I'm just kidding, Dad."
Next to teasing Martak, Jordan's favorite activities are helping him with his make-up and making sure his dad is wearing his protective vest by punching him in the chest. As he rides around the Delta Center's underbelly on a cardboard tube he says is a bull, he stops only to answer a question.
"Should Daddy quit fighting the bulls?" Jordan stops waving his arm for a minute. "No."
And then, as he rides again, he asks if his father will take him to ride on the mechanical bull upstairs.
"Sure," his father says. And then he adds to no one in particular, "This little guy, he's the bullrider. He's the most important thing."
E-mail: adonaldson@desnews.com