Padecky: Zebra in the rodeo

Of course, you don’t know. How could you? How could anyone? Martin Kiff is out there, officiating high school football, and it’s not like he’s doing it wearing eyeliner, white face, orange ears, a red rubber nose, size 35 yellow shoes and a kazoo for a whistle. While he walks like Charlie Chaplin.

“I think the only coach in the area who knows is (Paul) Cronin (Cardinal Newman’s head coach),” said Kiff, a Healdsburg resident. “That’s because Paul took his son to a rodeo once.”

From the stands, Cronin looked into the bull ring, saw this rodeo clown, heard Kiff’s name across the loudspeaker and probably said something like well-I’ll-be-dipped-in-face-paint. A football official is a rodeo clown? Sure, and while we’re at it, Grandma just finished astronaut training.

“I’m the only guy (official) you can call a clown,” Kiff said, “and get away with it and not get a 15-yard penalty for it.”

Kiff is not a stiff. He’s been a rodeo clown for 30 years, has worked some of the biggest rodeos in America, performed in front of 80,000 people at the Rose Bowl, putting 60,000 miles a year on his truck hauling a trailer. He’s also been a football official for 24 years; so stellar, Kiff was recently honored by being selected to work a CIF regional playoff game in December.

How Kiff came to this unique marriage of rodeo and football is the story of one man’s will to thrive, not just survive. It reveals the steel spine necessary to step into the bull ring to face a 2,000-pound Brahma bull or to make a call that will send a stadium full of parents into a screaming, apoplectic frenzy.

“When I graduated from Healdsburg High School in 1981,” said Kiff, 51, “I was 5-foot-5 and the most insecure person in the world. If I had any self-esteem, I wouldn’t have done it (rodeo clown). But I wanted to show people I was a bad ass. I mean, you don’t see any tall, good-looking guys working rodeo.”

The short good-looking guy went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to study agriculture but, in reality, he went to San Luis Obispo to study Cal Poly’s rodeo team. The school is a national power, having won 44 national titles. The allure was a logical draw for Kiff, who saw a rodeo and the clowns when he was young and was smitten.

For a guy wanting to prove himself as a seminal tough guy, this would do it, all right. No one would ever again wonder if Kiff was a person of substance, not after seeing him stand in front of a snorting pile of anger, to distract the animal, to save a thrown rider from being trampled.

“The closer to the bull, the better,” Kiff said.

“Like this close?” I said, joking, referring to the distance between us at a breakfast table.

“Closer,” Kiff said.

Why?

“So you can move around him and get on his shoulder,” Kiff said. “Once you get on his shoulder he can’t spin around fast enough to get you.”

“What about the horns?”

That’s when Kiff launched into a detailed description on how to avoid getting gored. It’s about body language.

“You wait until he raises one of his front hooves,” he said. “When that hoof goes up, he can’t spin or move.”

In that nano-second of suspension, Kiff does his own spin move, much like a defensive lineman getting past a blocker. To be quick is an understatement. Kiff has never forgotten when he wasn’t quick enough.

“I went to make my move and I slipped, fell to the ground,” Kiff said.

This would be the time Kiff was silently thanking his parents for having him and it was a good life, however short - Kiff was 20 at the time.

“I remember the bull going right over the top of me,” Kiff said. “I found out they don’t like to step on you. They are intelligent creatures. They somehow know that if they step on you, they can break a leg and be put down. You don’t want a bull bloated. So it’s been three hours since they have been fed. So the bull is hungry. It wants to be fed.”

In trying to leave the ring the same way they entered it - upright - the clown needs to know his opponent.

“The old bulls want to get in and get out, they know the routine, they have been doing it so long,” Kiff said. “But the younger bulls, they’ll chase anything.”

In his 30 years - 20 of them as a bullfighter and 10 inside a barrel - Kiff has seen two riders die in the ring. In the beginning of his career, the gravity of the situation would settle on him when the ring would go silent.

“All the handlers and other workers would climb the fence,” Kiff said, “and you’d look around and you’d notice you’re the only one there. That’s when it would hit me.”

Kiff has been tossed over a fence, had his left foot broken twice, had seven ribs broken and dislocated an arm 30 years ago that still troubles him. The most catastrophic injury, however, is the one he can’t remember. Kiff was kicked in the head by a bull in Salinas and doesn’t remember that or anything else for the next two weeks.

“I got too close,” said Kiff, shaking his head. “The next thing I know, I’m back home (two weeks later).”

All this said, we are now prepared to make the link between football and rodeo. It is a futile attempt to determine if one influences another. Rather, they are a perfect marriage in that Kiff’s intent is the same in both.

“Both are controlled train wrecks,” said Kiff, who also runs a custom-made welding business when time permits.

In both arenas, it is managing chaos. Kiff’s skill set on the football field is stellar in that regard, said Pete Dardis, the legendary official who sets schedules each football season.

“Martin is better with players than most (officials),” Dardis said. “He communicates well with them. He is not arrogant. Somebody will be screaming at him. Martin will ask them to talk about it, as opposed to brushing them off.”

It’s a gift, being able to keep a cool head while Brahma bulls, players, coaches or parents are losing theirs.

“They deserve respect,” Kiff said.

He is talking about both bull and player.

“Hey, No. 65, help me out here! You gotta quit holding!” Kiff will shout to a lineman. It will be a hold away from a play. It will have nothing to do with the play. It is designed to tighten the action, to put a player on notice. As an umpire, Kiff’s duty is to watch the line of scrimmage and everything that happens between the tackles.

“Ideally, you want to get as close (to the line) as possible,” said Kiff, a sentence he used previously in this column.

Kiff also is the junior varsity football coach at Healdsburg, his son Lucas a wide receiver on the varsity. As long as he remains a coach in the area, Kiff will not be allowed to umpire any games in the Sonoma County League, eliminating a conflict of interest.

Another potential one remains: Kiff is on the sidelines of games officiated by his friends. Kiff could go bombastic on them. Kiff could be outraged, insolent and unmanageable. He’s a coach, after all. Feels almost like a job requirement. But if Kiff lost his cool as a coach, that would mean he would forget the impact of Frank Wright, another legendary official in the Empire.

“I owe so much to Frank because of what he taught me,” Kiff said. “People deserve respect. I learned perspective. Officials are the ones who work long hours for not much money because they love what they do. We try to see everything, but sometimes we can’t.”

Officials are human, the same as rodeo clowns who get too close to the hoof of a bull. That Kiff has been able to do both while keeping his wits and body parts intact is a rare compliment, considering both venues.

“Were you surprised to learn Martin was a rodeo clown?” I asked Dardis.

“How many rodeo clowns do you know?” Dardis responded.

I just met my first. It’s a surprise, apparently, I share with many other people.

“Parents ask me, ‘Since you are a clown, can you do my kid’s birthday?’?” Kiff said. “They ask me if I’m like Ronald McDonald.”

No, Martin Kiff doesn’t do birthdays. OK, sure, he’s a clown all right, but he’s no joke. A Brahma bull, as far as anyone knows, doesn’t laugh all that much.

To contact Bob Padecky email him at bobpadecky@gmail.com.