Swearingen had a season for the ages in 2022 in becoming the fifth-youngest bull rider to win a PBR world title and the seventh to win the World Finals average the same year. The left-hander is known for his mild-mannered demeanor, but made it known he is as ridiculously tough as he is quiet. Occasionally, Swearingen has gotten stacked up, stomped on, jerked down and, yet, walked from the arena without any assistance. Arguably the toughest rider on tour, Swearingen also happens to be a dynamite rider. In fact, in Oklahoma City, he nearly lost his life when his helmet was cracked open after being stepped on. Yet, the Piffard, New York cowboy (by way of his home state of North Carolina) returned a week later and won the elite televised event in St. Louis and, four days later, he made it back-to-back elite level wins in Los Angeles.

Throughout the 2022 season, his fourth full-season at the highest level of competition, Swearingen went an impressive 26-for-60, covering 43.33 percent of his bulls, not including his perfect 2-for-2 performance at AT&T Stadium to lead the United States to a Global Cup victory in March. “I’ve grown,” Swearingen said, when it comes to “handling different types of pressure. ”He earned more than $1,697,481, in 2022, including $1,394,000, in Fort Worth, where he went 6-for-8 at the Finals, to claim his first gold buckle. “That’s the only time that being number one really matters,” he said.

Swearingen is now 17th on the list of PBR all-time money-earners, with career earnings topping more than $2.21 million. He was the third pick of the inaugural PBR Team Series draft and then packaged in a blockbuster trade that sent him from the Texas Ratters to the Carolina Cowboys, where he was coached by his childhood mentor and PBR legend Jerome Davis. He is a five-tool professional when it comes to character, including morals and respect, and has won national titles in high school — 2018 National High School Rodeo bareback riding champion — and college to go to his PBR world title. Swearingen attended Panola College, where he won the 2019 National Championship in bull riding to help his Ponies team win the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association National Championship. That same year, he won the PBR Canadian title, qualified for his first PBR World Finals in November and his first National Finals Rodeo a month later.

Naturally, Swearingen grew up in a rodeo family. His mother Carrie was a barrel racer and trick rider, while his father Sam is a stock contractor and previously owned and operated Rawhide Rodeo Company. Wrestling and boxing were a major part of the culture in Upstate New York, and the younger Swearingen had the talent and athleticism to be a Division I college wrestler had he not chosen rodeo, or more specifically bull riding, for a career.