Genuine leather career
Briefcase with teeth
December 11, 2000
Web posted at: 5:28 p.m. EST (2228 GMT)
By Larry Keller
CNN.com/career Senior Writer
(CNN) -- "Most gators, once they bite you, they'll shake about four or five times. As long as you don't put up any resistance, they'll usually let you go."
You hope never to hear Greg Long say that his job is eating him alive. Because it could happen.
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QUICK VOTE
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Long, 32, is the newest alligator wrestler hired by the Seminole Indians to perform for tourists in Hollywood, Florida. You may recall stories three months ago about the tribe's difficulty in finding a suitable candidate for the position.
After a three-week training period, Long officially began work on Nov. 10. He says he's confident he won't become a morsel for one of the primordial reptiles.
"They don't really want your hand in their mouth," he says. "They're just trying to tell you, 'Back off.'"
 Not-so-tiny Bubbles
Before this gator gig, Long had wrestled the animals full- or part-time for 10 years, getting bitten twice.
"It happens so fast, you usually don't know you've been bitten until it's almost over with. You don't even believe it at first. Once they get ahold of you, depending on the gator, he can do pretty much what he wants to you. You can't really open up the jaws once he clamps on you. If he decides to spin on you, you can really get mangled up pretty good."
Long says he still has all his fingers and toes, but adds, "I've got a bunch of holes in them. You're guaranteed to get bit if you take this on as a profession. That's a fact."
In October, a Seminole Everglades guide known as Swamp Owl had a hand crushed when a 10-foot, one-eyed gator named Bubbles chomped down on it. Owl, also known as Paul Morrison, had extensive reconstructive surgery following the mishap, which occurred during an exhibition at a private function.
In February, Seminole Chief James Billie lost a finger wrestling a gator in front of about 100 tourists. Perhaps the chief was a bit rusty -- it had been a decade since he'd tussled with one of the beady-eyed brutes.
And three years ago, a wrestler named Kenny Cypress got too up-close-and-personal with one of the scaly critters when his head became jammed between its jaws. Two men and a crowbar were needed to free Cypress, who suffered a fractured jaw and other injuries.
 Life and limb
The Seminoles have relied on alligators for food and hides since the 19th century when their tribes were forced into Florida's swamps during the three conflicts between 1817 and 1858 collectively known as the Seminole Wars.
"They'd catch them alive and keep them alive until they were ready to eat them because they didn't have refrigeration," Long says. "They always had meat handy with an alligator in the back yard."
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GATOR NUGGETS
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They taste like chicken. But we're talking about nuggets of information, meaty little tidbits of smartness you can show off with among your friends. Sink your teeth into some data.
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By the 1920s, a white man had begun staging gator wrestling shows in Florida. Eventually the Seminoles staged their own acts at various roadside venues. But as Seminoles have profited from the opening of casinos and other ventures, there've been fewer tribe members interested in grappling with gators.
"They're going to college," Chuck Malkus, a Seminoles publicist says of the tribe, not the gators. "They're pursuing other careers -- real estate, law, e-commerce."
So it was that the Seminoles resorted to placing a help-wanted ad in a local newspaper in search of a new gator gladiator to perform at their Okalee Village and Museum. And so it was that Long, who's not a Native American, got the job, becoming the second Anglo on the three-man team of wrestlers.
 Long and the sport of it
In his new job, Long dives into a 6-foot-deep swimming pool to fetch his quarry. In previous jobs, he approached them on land or in shallow water. "On land ... you have a little more control, he says, "because you're about up to his speed at that point.
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After diving into a pool to grab an alligator, Greg Long "bulldogs" -- using his chin to hold the jaws of an alligator closed -- while working to tying them shut.
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"It's more dangerous" Long says of the deep-water approach. "It's their element. They're quicker than you are in the water. You can't really see what's going on very quickly. I swim straight down. I've got to wrap my legs around his tail and grab him by the neck and hope he doesn't spin out of my hands."
Long then brings the beast to the surface and carries him out of the water for the audience to see. Then he slides on his back -- before the gator spins around, he hopes.
"You open up his mouth and explain about their teeth, their tongue, their ears and eyes," he says. "Then you show them how to actually tie the jaws. If you're by yourself, you use your chin and chest as an extra pair of hands. That part's called bulldogging."
The entire alligator wrestling show lasts about 25 to 30 minutes. Long says he has had one close call so far in his new job.
"I had one spin around and swim right at me and I kind of did a dance over the top of him," Long recalls in a matter-of-fact tone of voice one might expect from an accountant discussing ledgers. "I don't know exactly what took place because you can't really see once that water starts splashing around. After I got away from him, I recaptured him."
It's been estimated that alligators can run as fast as 35 mph in a short, straight sprint. Long says he can't vouch for this. "I've never got beside one and run with it. But usually when they make a burst for the water, it's lightning fast."
 Not a get-rich scheme
Disfigurement and death aren't the only job hazards Long has faced. "I was married," he says. "My wife ran off with another alligator wrestler."
All this for a job that starts at $8 an hour. Based on a 40-hour work week, that's base pay of $16,640 a year -- slightly less than the average landscaping laborer.
Long hopes to be bumped up to $12 an hour once he completes his three-month probationary period, "but I haven't heard anything yet." He splits tips each day with two other gator wrestlers and a guy who does a snake show. Once the "snowbird" tourist season begins in earnest in South Florida -- after Christmas -- Long says this can boost his pay quite a bit.
There are four shows a day, Wednesday through Saturday, and three shows on Sunday at the Seminole attraction. The wrestlers take turns so nobody does all four shows in one day. But one or both wrestlers not working a show usually remains nearby to come to the aid of whomever is working, should he have trouble, Long says.
Although his co-stars might feel no remorse about maiming or killing him, Long says he's no gator hater.
"I like alligators," he says. "Most of them are only defensive, not aggressive. Very few gators will actually run after you. I don't want to see anything happen to them. I don't hurt them in any way."
That's probably true, says Heyward Clamp, co-owner of the Edisto Island Serpentarium on Edisto Island, about 40 miles south of Charleston, South Carolina. Clamp's facility showcases mostly snakes, but also has alligators. They're not wrestled.
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GREG LONG AT WORK
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Gators are "the strongest reptiles of all," Clamp says. "They're very tough. I don't think the gator wrestlers hurt the alligators at all."
Gators are never sedated before a show to make them less dangerous, Long says. "They have a very low metabolism. I don't believe you could sedate them. Besides, you don't really want to sedate them because it's not going to be a good show gator if he's just lying there half-dead. You want the most active gator possible. You try not to overuse him, so he doesn't lame out on you."
But like rodeo cowboys getting a read on which broncos or bulls are the most ornery, gator wrestlers learn which of the reptiles are fiercest.
"Some never tame down, some will half-tame down and some will tame down to where it's relatively safe," Long says. "If you're feeling a little sluggish yourself, you don't grab the meanest one. If you feel spunky, you grab the mean one."
Maybe, but Clamp says that if gator wrestlers such as Long were to try their tricks on a "fresh-caught" animal, they'd become reptile chow pretty quickly. "An alligator won't be wrestled unless he wants to be," Clamp says. "They're too strong. The gators get docile and get used to being moved around. They get used to being fed. They're fat."
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"It happens so fast, you usually don't know you've been bitten until it's almost over with. You don't even believe it at first. Once they get ahold of you, depending on the gator, he can do pretty much what he wants to you."
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— Greg Long, alligator wrestler
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Long says a member of the Miccosukee tribe -- the Seminoles' close kin -- wrestled gators until he was about 80 years old. "You just use the lamer gators at that point," he says.
Maybe Long will still be tackling gators while collecting Social Security one day.
"As long as it can sustain me, I'll continue doing it," Long says. "I like working with animals. I like teaching people. And I love the Everglades, and gators are a main part of the Everglades."
Editor's note: U.S. President Bill Clinton on Monday signed a funding bill that authorizes $1.4 billion in federal money to start a 30-year restoration of the Florida Everglades. Most of the money -- to be matched by state funds -- will be used to reverse the effects of an Army Corps of Engineers flood-control project started in 1948. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush flew to Washington for Monday's signing at the White House.
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