McBride Believes Alves Can be Great Addition to Nashville Stampede
By: Justin Felisko
PUEBLO, Colo. – Nashville Stampede coach Justin McBride was driving back to Texas following Outlaw Days on Aug. 7 with Ryan Dirteater, Joao Henrique Lucas, Lucas Fideles Souza and Stampede Director of Rider Development & Scouting Keith Ryan Cartwright. The group started to talk about who could be a good fit to replace injured teammate Fernando Henrique Novais on the Stampede’s roster.
Novais was headed to injured reserve, which meant there was an opportunity for McBride, Cartwright and Nashville General Manager Tina Battock to make a free agent signing.
There was one rider in particular who Cartwright had constantly been reminding McBride about in recent weeks: three-time World Champion Silvano Alves.
McBride, though, wanted to make sure that whoever the team decided to sign would be a good culture fit for the program he is building. A big part of the Stampede’s program is team chemistry. McBride wants his team to be one cohesive unit.
Could Alves be that guy?
Everyone in the truck on that seven-hour drive gave a resounding yes.
McBride began to think more about the decision. He eventually talked with other team members, including 2018 World Champion Kaique Pacheco, who was mentored by Alves earlier in his career.
The Stampede signed Alves to its protected roster less than 24 hours later on Aug. 8.
“I’ve got multiple reasons why I think it could be good,” McBride told PBR.com this past weekend in Anaheim, California. “It could be great for the team. It could be great for Silvano. He brings a lot of good stuff. He brings a deep knowledge of the bulls. He brings a deep knowledge of our team of guys. He knows all of those guys, and those guys know him. There’s a trust level there, and he can still ride. If we get him matched up the right way, and having Fernando go down, he’s one of the better right-handers out there. Not that was just available, but in general.”
Some may consider Alves a polarizing figure. Many have disagreed with his chute procedure over the years, and he was surprisingly not drafted at the 2022 PBR Team Series Draft, presented by ZipRecruiter, on May 23.
“Throughout my lifetime, I’ve watched coaches and franchises bring in certain players that other people didn’t think you should use and have championship seasons with them,” McBride said. “I felt like if I didn’t try that, I would be doing our franchise an injustice in not doing my job.
“The big knock on Silvano has been in the chute, right? The way this is set up, everybody is on the clock (starting at 90 seconds), so that’s not even an issue anymore. I want him to let me worry about the things that are out of his control. I don’t want him to worry about those things and let me take that burden away from him, and he can just focus on his team, his role, or whatever it may be. If it’s helping the guys that night, if it’s stepping out to ride the bull, I just want him to focus on that. Not anything else that’s not in his control.”
Alves has a resume unlike any other in the history of the sport. Three world titles, a 2014 PBR World Finals event title, 12 qualifications to the PBR World Finals, and 459 qualified rides on the premier series (fourth-most all time) are just some of his elite accomplishments.
Now he will attempt to win the inaugural PBR Team Series championship (Nov. 4-6 in Las Vegas) with the Stampede.
Nashville can certainly use a jolt heading into its homestand at Bridgestone Arena this coming weekend. Alves is expected to make his season debut for the Stampede in front of its home fan base.
The Stampede (2-5) have lost four games in a row, going a paltry 3-for-20. They will face Carolina (3-4) on Friday night (8:45 p.m. ET, RidePass on Pluto TV).
McBride said in Anaheim that it is not time to panic yet, and there is still plenty of time left in the season – three-quarters of it, to be exact – to turn the tide.
“It’s a learning curve for everybody,” McBride said. “At the end of the day, we just need to go ride every bull. But there’s some different things in these formats than what I’m used to or what the guys are used to, so we’re just finding our way. Finding our system, our schedule, our timing and how to structure everything, and we’re not too panicked yet. There’s a lot of games left to be played, and we’ll find our groove.”
Alves enters the picture as a veteran presence alongside Pacheco and Dirteater, who missed Championship Saturday in Anaheim because of a sprained left ankle.
The 34-year-old may no longer be the 8-second machine he once was when he won three gold buckles, but his riding percentage is still respectable enough for him to be a factor in the PBR Team Series. In fact, Alves may have won his last world title in 2014, but the 12-time PBR World Finals qualifier has the 10th-most qualified rides on the premier series since 2017 with 133. His 33.25% riding percentage in the last six seasons on the UTB ranks 26th overall.
McBride also sees Alves as another potential knowledge pipeline for his Brazilian-heavy squad. Six of Nashville’s seven protected riders are Brazilian natives, and Portuguese is their primary language.
McBride has been relying on Lucas Fideles Souza to help with the language barrier, and now he will have another English/Portuguese voice in the locker room.
“We’ve got some young guys on the team that I think could benefit learning from him,” McBride said. “Like I said, they trust him. They trust his opinion about the bulls and different things like that. They like him being there to help in the chute and things like that. There’s a lot of roles that he can fill. He can be a bit of an assistant coach at times and be a rider at times when situations call for it.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media
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