DUBLIN, Texas (June 9, 2010) - Matt Bohon has learned a big lesson: Take the time to heal.
Looking back, the former PBR World Finals qualifier realizes he failed to rest and recuperate after sustaining injuries last season, and says it’s been costly.
While competing in a Built Ford Tough Series event in San Antonio last August, Bohon collided with Spit Fire during the final round. He suffered a concussion and facial fractures when he hit the bull’s horn, and injured a shoulder after being stepped on.
Six weeks after the accident, Bohon thought he was physically sound enough to ride again, and returned to the Ford Series. He was obsessed with qualifying for the World Finals.
But it would take longer than he thought to regain the ability to react quickly to a bull’s high bucks and rapid turns. As a result of his inconsistency, Bohon failed to qualify for the Las Vegas championships.
That sent the 26-year-old to the Touring Pro Division in January, and he’s since competed mostly in the minor leagues, trying to work his way back onto the BFTS.
This weekend, Bohon is entered in the Brent Thurman Memorial PBR Touring Pro Division event, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the VFW Arena in Bastrop, Texas. And on the weekend of June 18-19, he’s scheduled to ride in the Dakota Community Bank Touring Pro Division show at Bismarck, N.D.
In the Touring Pro standings, Bohon is ranked 33rd with $12,466. In the Finals Qualifier standings, he’s 38th, with $26,623.
The difference is due to the fact that he has $14,157 in BFTS earnings. He competed as an alternate in Ford Series shows in Albuquerque, N.M., and Des Moines, Iowa. In Des Moines, he went 3-for-3 against the bulls and earned the $14,157 check after finishing second in the average.
Bohon, who has almost $570,000 in PBR career earnings, is counting on competing regularly on the BFTS and returning to the World Finals. He was a regular on the top-tier tour for more than five years before getting derailed last year.
In June of 2009, Bohon underwent hip surgery. Two months later, he suffered the concussion and shoulder injuries in San Antonio.
In a recent interview, Bohon, who has homes in Cole Camp, Mo., and Dublin, Texas, answered questions about his current challenges.
Question: You had a rough year in 2009.
Answer: I had been fighting a lot of wear and tear on my hip, and it had been bugging me for a couple of years. I finally decided to go get it fixed in June. And then my second event coming back from that surgery was in San Antonio in August, and that’s where I got ripped out pretty badly. So, I’d say last year was pretty horrible.
Q. Do you feel like the injuries are something that just goes with the territory?
A. It actually was very strange for me, because I’ve been very fortunate to be injury-free for a long time, throughout my whole career. Yeah, you see guys who get hurt and then they come back and they get hurt again at their first event back. But I had never been in that position. So, it took me a little while to adjust.
Q. Talk about the collision with Spit Fire.
A. He was the same old Spit Fire who bucks the way he always does. He pulled me down onto his head, hit me with his horn and knocked me out. During the process, I hung up to him, and the only way I got out of the hang-up was he stepped right in the middle of my back, on my right shoulder blade.
Q. How did it affect you mentally?
A. It wasn’t like I was nervous or worried about getting hurt again when I started getting back on. That comes with the sport. If you’re worried about that, you might as well go home. It took me a long time to get over that injury as far as being able to react fast enough to the bulls. My body healed up and I was cleared to ride (six weeks later in Reno, Nev.). But looking back, I had no business getting on. I went through the end of the year knowing the my body felt good, but I was not healed enough. I should have stayed home. It took me probably until the middle of January to be able to see what a bull was doing and be able to react fast enough as I was riding. I was able to work the kinks out at Touring Pro events to get to where I am right now.
Q: Are you saying that being on the Touring Pro circuit is where you need to be right now?
A: Obviously, I think it is. With me being on (the BFTS) tour for five, almost six years in a row, it’s hard to admit, but I got into a routine to where I expected to be there. Some of that was the way I performed up until my injuries started making me create some habits that were detrimental to my fundamentals. I just kept trying to fight through it and fight through it. But going to these Touring Pros has been like a breath of fresh air. You don’t have any of the pressure, any of the cameras and they’re fun. It’s made me realize how fun this sport really can be.
Q: What’s the difference between the Touring Pro Division and the Built Ford Tough Series?
A: For one, the money. I have to go to a lot more Touring Pros to win the amount of money I can win at one event at a Built Ford Tough event. At the Touring Pros, there’s just a more relaxed atmosphere. You can pretty much focus on the things that you really need to key in on, and that’s competing. At the Built Ford Tough Series, you have to split that time between competing and making PR appearances and doing TV spots. At these Touring Pros, I can really sit down and focus on the things I need to fix.
Q. So are you going to blaze the Touring Pro trails this summer?
A. I’ve actually have a great opportunity this summer, and one big break is I get to go back to the (July 9-18) Calgary Stampede. The Built Ford Tough Series show in Tulsa is during the second and last weekend of the Stampede. So, the guys who are on the BFTS have to go to Tulsa (on July 16-18), which gave me the opportunity to get the invite to ride in Calgary for $100,000. So I’m looking forward to having to ride against only 20 other guys to try to win $100,000. As good as I have been riding up to this point, my confidence going in there is very, very high.
Q. If you had to boil it down to one main thing that you need to do to get back to where you were before you were thwarted by injuries, what would that be?
A. I had created a lot of bad habits within my fundamentals when I was trying to stay away from that hip, and it showed in my riding. I’ve been able to sit down and figure out exactly what I was doing, while being healthy enough to fix it and while being in the right state of mind. When I climb on the back of a bull, I know I’ve done the preparation to fix the problem.
Q. Over the years, you’ve had a great run on the Built Ford Tough Series. What would you say to younger cowboys who aspire to get there and become consistent?
A: It takes having fun with it. I honestly can now say you have to pay attention to your body, because I did not. In this sport, it’s been ingrained in you to be tough, be tough, be tough and be a cowboy. But in my opinion, my case in point, when you struggled as long as I struggled, it wasn’t just me having a rough go at it. Something was bothering me and I needed to listen to my body and get it worked on before it got as bad as it did. You need to pay attention to how you feel. You also need to work hard at your career. You need to not treat this as a weekend sport. Instead, treat it like someone who plays football treats their sport. They’re going to practice all week before a game on Friday. You have to work at it at home and not just on the weekends. It’s a dangerous sport and your fundamentals have to be there. The only way learn to ride bulls is to ride bulls and work at it.
News & Notes
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The best of 2010: PBR.TV is counting down the top rides of the year. This week, check out rides No. 21-30, including three 90-point efforts by Renato Nunes, and then vote for your favorite here.
