Retired Marble Falls boys soccer coach runs with the bulls
CAPTION: Rick Hoover is all smiles after he ran with the bulls in Spain. Courtesy photos
Retired Marble Falls High School boys soccer coach Rick Hoover has guided the Mustangs to some of their greatest moments in program history when he had the job from 2013-2024.
Prior to the 2026 team, the 2018 Mustangs reached the Class 5A Region IV semifinals, which was the best finish in program history with Hoover on the sideline. That illustrates one of the many great runs Hoover’s teams made.
But on July 12, Hoover made his own run and fulfilled a bucket list item when he and about 3,500 of his closest friends, all decked in white clothing and red bandanas, stood on a street in Pamplona located in the Navarre region of northern Spain for the sixth day of the Running of the Bulls.
“I have wanted to do this pretty much all of my adult life and just now have the opportunity to do it,” he said. “I’ve watched the videos and I’ve seen it on television. Your whole life you’ve seen it, and it just looks crazy and amazing, and it’s a good time, but it’s also a little bit, you know, off the wall, and so I wanted to do it. And honestly I wasn’t sure that I’d ever get a chance to do it. We had the opportunity this year to go, and it was just incredible. It’s more than what you see on the videos. The videos, the pictures don’t do it justice. It’s an overwhelming sight.”
Hoover and his wife, Nattlie, took the trip to Italy and Spain, making sure they arrived in Pamplona in time for the annual San Fermin festival, which is July 6-14. The Running of the Bulls highlights the event. The festival has been happening since the 1300s, Hoover said.
While he was one of 3,500 runners, Nattlie was one of about 5,000 spectators. The couple rented a balcony for her “right above Deadman’s Corner” and she waved to her husband as he made his way to the starting line.
“It’s almost a 90-degree turn, so it’s a sharp right turn,” the coach said. “You have to get there at 6 in the morning, and all the runners line up (and) all the people get into the streets. They keep you in an area. You have a window of time to get onto the street. After that window closes, they block off the street. And then the run doesn’t start until 8 a.m. You’re chest-to-chest, back-to-back, shoulder-to-shoulder for two hours with 3,500 people waiting and thousands and thousands of people watching from the sidelines.”
CAPTION: Nattlie Hoover from the balcony above “Deadman’s Corner.”
The run — from the point they release the bulls to the finish — is about a mile.
“Number one is to not get killed,” he said. “Number two is to make it into the arena, into the bullfighting arena, which I did. I came running through the entrance kind of behind the bulls, and the arena hosts 20,000 people. And there wasn’t an empty seat in the arena. I had no idea that there were going to be that many people in the arena. I just figured it would be people waiting there for their friends to finish the run, but they actually sell tickets.”
He added that runners don’t run the whole mile “because you can’t.”
“There’s 3,500 people, so before they let the bulls out, they release the crowd, and the runners are spread out,” Hoover said. “Cause you can’t outrun the bulls. Did you know that the bulls run at a sub four-minute mile? I had no idea.”
By comparison legendary Marble Falls High School runner Leonel Manzano’s fastest 1,500-meter time is 3:30.98. Manzano won a silver medal at the 2012 London Olympics.
Hoover explained “Deadman’s Corner.”
“The bulls are just going and then all of a sudden there’s a hard right turn,” he said. “They slam against that wall and if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s where a lot of serious injuries occur. The thing is you’re running with (the bulls) for a few seconds and then they pass you. The dangerous part of this is probably more about the people, because it’s so crowded. You have to run with your head on a swivel, because the two things that could happen and happen a lot all around me is somebody falling. A person in front of me got hurt real bad, and I actually had to leap over them, had to stride over them like a hurdle.
“The other part is you have to worry about the people behind you because they’re going as fast as they can,” he added. “And if you get in their way, they’re just pushing because you’re running for your life it feels like. So people get into panic mode. You’re looking where you’re going, but you’re also looking back to make sure you’re not about to get run over by either a person or a bull.”
He noted there’s no registration fee to participate in the run.
“You don’t have to register, you don’t have to do anything, you don’t have to sign a waiver,” he said. “You just show up. It’s crazy.”
While the two were in Spain, they caught the Spain men’s national team’s 2-1 win against Belgium in the quarterfinals of the 2026 FIFA World Cup July 10.
“We were in a group of hundreds of Spaniards, and Spain came from behind and won the game,” Hoover said. “It was crazy. Just unbelievable to be able to be there in Spain while Spain was playing in the States, playing in the World Cup. It was quite the experience.”
Would Hoover run with the bulls again?
“I would,” he said. “It’s probably the most intense thing I’ve ever done. I can’t describe it. It’s adrenaline and you can’t fabricate that kind of adrenaline.”
CAPTION: Runners at the starting line.
