Alves Gets Sweet Redemption with Nashville’s PBR Team Series Championship
By: Justin Felisko
MINNEAPOLIS – Inside T-Mobile Arena last month, three-time World Champion Silvano Alves had tears streaming down his face as he peered into his iPhone to see his kids, Hanyelle and Eduardo, jumping up and down in celebration at home in Texas.
Eduardo and Hanyelle had stayed at the Alves’ ranch during the PBR Team Series Championship because they had their own youth rodeo events. But they had made sure to tune in to CBS Sports Network on Championship Sunday to see their dad ride Hunter for 85.5 points and help the No. 8 Nashville Stampede become the Cinderella PBR Team Series Champions in a 264-182.75 victory over the No. 5 Arizona Ridge Riders.
“We are the champions!” Alves screamed into the phone to a roar of cheers.
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A few minutes later, Alves wiped tears away when recapping how difficult the past six months had been for his family and himself.
Alves has not forgotten the pain he felt when he walked out of Texas Live! on May 23 in Arlington, Texas, following the inaugural PBR Team Series Draft, presented by ZipRecruiter, and had to look his son in his face and try to explain why he was not selected by any of the eight teams.
How could one of the PBR’s all-time greats, and one of only two men to win three world titles, not be selected in a draft where 40 bull riders were chosen?
Teams elected to roll with riders with zero experience in the PBR compared to Alves’s 13 consecutive PBR World Finals qualifications.
“It was so difficult for everyone, especially my family,” Alves said. “My son looked at me and said, ‘Dad, they didn’t pick you? Why?’”
Alves then shakes his head, thinking about the moment between father and son.
“I told him, ‘At the end of the day, it’s okay,” Alves said. “’Life continues, I ride bulls every single week, and I will continue riding. You can’t forget about your potential.’
“I knew my potential.”
Still, Alves and his family were certainly stung.
“It was very hard for him, and it was hard for me to understand, and for our kids. This was a hard process for us all,” Alves’s wife Evelin explained. “But, when you put everything you have in God’s hands, we know he’s prepared it best for you.”
Silvano would keep his head down, keep his faith in the Lord’s plan, and did what he told his son he would.
He didn’t publicly bash any of the teams. He focused on letting his riding do the talking.
He pushed forward.
Alves went 11-for-24 (45.83%) in seven PBR Challenger Series events, while many PBR Teams struggled to have their riders record 8-second rides in game competition.
The 35-year-old was focusing on himself and enjoying time with his family – the important things in life – rather than dwelling on whether a team would give him a call.
Days, weeks, and months went by.
That iPhone remained silent.
However, everything changed in August when he was on vacation in Florida.
Alves was catching some rays at Seagrove Beach and watching his kids play in the ocean when he saw he had an incoming call.
A Hawaiian-shirt-and-sunglasses-wearing Alves noticed it was none other than two-time World Champion and Nashville Stampede coach Justin McBride calling.
“Hello?” Alves answered, somewhat confused.
“Silvano! What are you doing?” McBride replied.
Alves then breaks out into laughter recounting the story.
“I’m at the beach!’” Alves remembers telling McBride. “I’m with my family on vacation. Enjoying life.”
McBride replied, “‘You need to be ready for the season, and I want you here with Nashville!’”
On the dirt of T-Mobile Arena, Alves pauses again.
Instead of tears, he also has victory champagne dripping off his face. He then looks over at McBride, doing his own celebratory interview.
In that summer moment, neither man knew that a suntanned Alves would play such a pivotal role for the Stampede.
It was a role that was much more important than Alves making his team debut with a walk-off, game-winning ride of 85.25 points aboard Yatesy Down Under to deliver Nashville a stunning 85.25-0 victory over the Texas Rattlers inside Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena.
“I told Justin I just wanted to work hard and do my best to help his team grow,” Alves said. “No matter what, I promised him every time I would do my best.”
McBride had his hesitations at first about Alves. He knew the criticism that existed among all eight PBR Teams leadership groups. And yes, he, too, had some concerns.
The 43-year-old head coach shakes his head, knowing he was wrong at first.
“Silvano has gotten a little bit of a rap that he didn’t deserve at times,” McBride said. “Some of the criticisms, yes, because he took the bait. I have known him his entire career. I know how great he has ridden. A lot of people didn’t think he rides as good anymore. It was always the chute (procedure). He takes too long in the chute. He is fighting with the judges. He is worrying about things that aren’t in his control. But the way Teams is set up, everybody is on the clock. That eliminated that problem for me.”
McBride then looks over at Alves and his Stampede teammates.
Alves and his wife were posing for photos with the entire team on the dirt, where Alves went a ferocious 2-for-4 for the Stampede in the postseason.
The pain the Alves family felt on draft night had been replaced by pure joy.
McBride had heard the stories about how the Alves family took 2018 World Champion and Stampede team captain Kaique Pacheco under their wings like a second child early in Pacheco’s career when he first moved to the United States in 2015.
However, McBride got to see up close and personal just what kind of impact Silvano, as well as Evelin, can have on a group of bull riders in the two months leading up to the PBR Team Series Championship.
The Stampede head coach did not realize Nashville was getting surrogate parents when the team decided to sign Alves on Aug. 15.
“Hell no,” McBride said. “It has impressed me so much to watch him grow as a leader. That is a guy who can coach his own team someday. Look, I know a lot of great bull riders. I know most of them pretty well, and there is not a lot of great men like this. Silvano is a great man. There is a difference there. Not all great bull riders are. Silvano took this whole team in. We go to his house to practice. We keep the bulls there. His wife cooks for everybody.”
One man who knew Alves deserved to be on a team all along was none other than Pacheco, who was the first rider to call him once McBride hung up the phone with him.
The 28-year-old, though, knew it was not his place to push McBride or the Stampede to sign Alves at the beginning of the season. Pacheco understood his role was to ride bulls, not to construct a roster.
Pacheco was eventually asked by Stampede Director of Scouting and Rider Development Keith Ryan Cartwright and McBride about the possibility of signing Alves.
“I just tell them the truth,” Pacheco said. “I believe in him. He’s a great guy. He don’t have to say nothing. He’s a three-time World Champion. He’s one of the best bull riders in the world. I wanted him on the team, but when it start, we have our roster full. And when we have a chance, I talked to Justin and Keith, and we made that happen. Silvano, he is my best friend. He always helps me.
“I’m so proud for him. He did a really good job. We needed him.”
On the morning of Championship Sunday, Silvano, Evelin, and a cousin opened up the Bible to pray at their hotel before heading to the arena.
“When he wasn’t drafted, we knew God had a plan for us, and then we are thanking God for making a plan, and Nashville called us,” Evelin said. “I then said, ‘I don’t have anything planned, just God has a plan for us.’”
One of the Bible verses they read that morning at the hotel together?
Matthew 19:30: “But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.”
Evelin, holding back her tears on Championship Sunday, never lost faith in her husband.
She knew this moment could happen.
She smiled, watching Silvano and Pacheco spray champagne all over the arena dirt.
This was a moment she saw slowly developing as Silvano welcomed his teammates to his ranch countless days during the week to practice, pray, feast, and grow together into one cohesive familial unit.
“We’re grateful, grateful for the whole team,” Evelin said. “The whole team makes a difference. The whole team is together, and they have been trying really hard. People don’t get to see behind the scenes, but every single week at practice, they all were talking a lot.
“But today, all of the wives were sitting in the same section, and I looked at them and said, ‘Yes. We are going to win today.’ And we did. Glory to our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Silvano had a special belief in his teammates as the days counted down in Las Vegas. He knew they could go from worst (7-20-1) to first.
“I am grateful for my team here,” Silvano said. “They worked really hard. Every single week they worked hard at home, and at the end of each week, nobody put their head down. I told the team one day, ‘Hey, nothing will define us (until the last game), but if you believe in God and the Holy Mary, you have to believe, and everyone has to try hard.’”
The same can be said for Alves.
The three-time World Champion didn’t let going undrafted define him.
Instead, he decided to add to his legacy with an inaugural PBR Team Series Championship.
2023 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP RUN & BEYOND?
Alves is now back for his 14th season on the PBR’s premier series, and he got off to a fast start in St. Louis last weekend. The longtime veteran used a 90-point ride on Savage in Round 1 to win his first UTB round since August 24, 2019, in Nashville. Alves then rode Mr. Winston for 87 points to enter the championship round atop the event standings before Tested’s Viper bucked him off in 5.36 seconds to end the event and give the win to 2016 World Champion Cooper Davis.
Regardless, Alves jumpstarted his season in St. Louis and heads into the PBR Minneapolis Invitational this weekend, sitting No. 8 in the Unleash The Beast standings.
Alves has drawn Oilfield Outlaw’s Yellow Feather (33-10, all levels) for Round 1 on Friday night at the Target Center (8:45 p.m. ET, RidePass on Pluto TV).
Could a fourth world title be a possibility this season?
“I just want to ride my bulls. That’s it,” Alves concluded with a grin. “No matter what age or format, you just have to ride your bulls, but now I’ve got three world titles as an individual and one with this team. So now, I am a champion four times. I’m glad for this. Thank you, Holy Mary and Jesus, for giving me this life.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
Photo courtesy of Todd Brewer/Bull Stock Media
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