Bagging the Trophy

The 2005 elk-calling world title was slipping away from the 9-year-old reigning champ (pee-wee division), and the father of the skinny boy whose 60-second routines had earned free hats, TV appearances and prize money could do nothing about it.

Seated in a grandstand in a corner of the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, seemingly miles away from the boy onstage in camouflage pants and periwinkle “Bugling Bull Game Calls” T-shirt, Greg Hubbell Sr. twisted in his chair and began whispering viciously to no one and everyone, grasping helplessly for a way to stop the contest, to jump back in time to just two minutes earlier, when he had leaned over, slung his arm around the boy and said: “You know what to do up there. Just be an elk. Be an elk.”

Greg Hubbell Jr., the champ, had nodded and walked confidently to the raised platform, ready to dominate the preliminary round on his inevitable path to victory. Hubbell Sr. watched him go, never imagining the debacle ahead. “Never seen Greg live before?” he asked the surrounding spectators. “Just watch.”

The champ would get 60 seconds to imitate a cow and a calf and, after a brief break, another 60 seconds to make noises like a bull, using his trade’s standard tool kit: A foot-long “grunt” tube that’s blown like a bugle, two black rubber “six guns” that are squeezed and look like dog chew toys, and a latex-covered reed known as a palate plate diaphragm. He would run through a repertoire of barks, grunts, whistles and bugles honed over years of training at his Belmont, Calif., home.

As the crowd quieted and the champ bowed his head, gathering composure for his first bark, the timekeeper started the clock at least 20 seconds early. When it buzzed, the champ realized he hadn’t completed his routine. In the stands, Hubbell Sr. swung around in his seat. “That wasn’t 60 seconds! That wasn’t 60 seconds!” he said in a frantic whisper.

Flustered but undaunted, the champ picked up his grunt tube and took a moment to calm down. Again, the timekeeper muffed the protocol, triggering the clock before the contestant had initiated a call, and the long hand sped down the face--10 seconds, 15, 20. Finally, the champ blew, generating a strong, clear bull elk bugle, the sound of a rusty gate swinging.

He threw everything into that call, knowing, as Hubbell Sr. knew, it might not be stupendous enough to wow the seven judges and get him to the finals.

The buzzer squawked, and the champ ran off the stage and curled up with his mom as Hubbell Sr. briefly consoled his boy and then stalked off to complain to the head official. But there would be no replay. The Hubbells would wait in agony, wondering if the champ would get the chance to reclaim his title and $500.

The tension thickened.

Hubbell Sr., a wide-necked 48-year-old, took the stage later the same afternoon to compete for the men’s title. But his trumpeting faltered as he threw his arms skyward and lunged as if drunk during the passionate throes of a lovesick-elk impersonation.

Anyway, his performance didn’t matter. Hubbell Sr. would be the first to tell you that his calls pale next to his kid’s. And with no encouragement he also would tell you that his namesake became world champion at age 7, before he’d ever seen an elk, because as a toddler he kept his little ear cocked for animal noises on TV. After a wilderness outfitter validated Hubbell Sr.’s suspicion that junior was a major talent, dad scaled back his hours as a financial planner so he could coach his son and daughter in several sports.

In a schedule already consumed by youth sports--the champ will play quarterback at Stanford, Hubbell Sr. says, if he doesn’t become the next Nolan Ryan first--father and son found time to join the elk-calling circuit. It’s a sideshow at the ubiquitous hook-and-bullet expos around the country where people browse displays of rifle scopes and soft-focus paintings of bull elk exhaling in the golden light of frosty fall mornings. The twosome got friendly with the pros from Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado--hunting guides and outfitters who mimic their prey so convincingly that the animals split from the herd and, if all goes well, end up in Ziplocs in the freezer.

Hubbell Sr. knows that the other parents consider him too intense. Heck, he’ll tell anyone who listens that the champ, who says he does this for the prize money, is a good kid in spite of him. But he cannot help himself. He is not about to concede his boy’s appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” or “featured caller” status at the Smithsonian Institution or the hoped-for performance at a future San Francisco Giants game.

That’s why the wait to hear who will make the finals in Portland is torture. Hubbell Sr. paces from the bathroom to the grandstand. He doffs his camouflage baseball hat to run a hand through matted hair. Finally, a man wearing a tailor-cut camo sport coat steps to the microphone.

“In the pee-wee division . . . Gregory Hubbell Jr.”

Up in the stands, the champ half-pumps a fist. Dad wipes his sweaty forehead with a forearm but remains indignant, fretting about the integrity of the contest.

The next morning, another sunny February day, the clock runs smoothly and the champ aces his routine. He sets a standard that no one in the pee-wee division--maybe even the youth division--can match, using 59 of his 60 seconds to be the elk. When he launches into his signature medley, a squeaking, honking affair that convinces the several hundred spectators that a herd of elk is bivouacked onstage, a man in the audience says softly, “Are they all this good?” Still, long after the champ leaves the stage, Hubbell Sr. rehashes the routine in his head, searching for flaws. When he asks, “Greg! Did you do your estrus?” the reply is a what-kind-of-idiot-do-you-take-me-for-Dad “Yes!”

The champ wins easily, scoring more points than anyone in his division or the youth division (or his dad), and accepts handshakes and pats on the back. Hubbell Sr. bloats with pride. And then a spectator leans forward, taps him on the shoulder and says, “Your son has a natural talent for being an elk.”

Dad beams.

“He does,” he whispers. “He does!”