KINTA, Okla. (February 10, 2010) - Last summer, Sterling Bowers told his family he wanted to enter a local Old Timers’ Rodeo.
The 73-year-old from Nebraska, who last rode a bareback bronc when he was 67, had no doubt in his mind that he could make the 8-second whistle on a bull, but physically he worried about his shoulders. After decades of rodeoing, boxing and working his ranch, he’s just not able to do the same things he did in his younger days. So begrudgingly, at his family’s urging, he passed on the opportunity.
“He’s a cowboy to the core,” said his grandson Austin Meier.
Meier, a third-generation bull rider, comes from a family where “anybody and everybody who’s a guy is a bull rider.”
“It’s just something that, I guess, in a sense, is just kind of expected,” he explained. “They started sticking me on stuff when I like 2 years old.”
Aside from his grandfather, his uncle Jay rode bulls, as did a trio of cousins – Rusty, Sterling and Sam. Now there’s even a younger group of cousins, who Meier said “are all tougher than boot leather and ready to ride.”
In fact, Meier recently got a text message from Rusty, who had just become a father, which read: “Another bull rider in the family.”
The Bowers family is from O’Neill, Neb., where Austin was born and lived until he was 2 years old. Sterling taught his three children the value of a hard day’s work from the time they were a young age.
The elder Bowers, who won more than 40 buckles and 8 saddles, put all three of his kids on calves and steers, so it was no surprise when he helped Meier get on his first bull. Sterling thought the youngster might cry when he got slammed his first time out.
Instead, Meier said, “That was fun. I want to do that again.”
“He’s pretty gritty,” said Austin’s mom, Twila.
Lean ‘n’ mean
Raised roughly 633 miles south of where he was born, in Checotah, Okla., Meier was a prototypical athlete. His dad Rex – a well-built bulldogger – was a mountain of muscle, so it was only natural that Austin played football throughout his youth. Two years in a row he broke his right ankle, and both times he was eager to get back on the field.
But even when was “knee-high to a grasshopper,” he knew he wanted to be a bull rider.
“I tried, when Austin was little, to have him pick up a rope,” Rex recalled. “I kept telling him, ‘You’re going to be way too big to be riding bulls.’ And one day he looked at me and he said, ‘Well, daddy, I’m just going to have to ride them until I get too big.’ I was like, ‘Oh, OK.’”
“I think when I was in high school, I only had like 4 percent body fat and was weighing 185 pounds. I was solid muscle,” Austin recalled. “It’s not real good for riding bulls when you’re 185 pounds and built like a brick house.”
Although he may not have had the optimal body type for bull riding, in 2002, the 5’ 11” Austin became the Reserve Bull Riding Champion for the Oklahoma High School Rodeo Assoc. and then, four years later, he made his PBR debut on the Built Ford Tough Series.
That year he finished 19th in the world standings, and won his first event, in Chicago.
Unfortunately, he saw his riding percentage slip over the next two years as he struggled to stay some of the ranker bulls—largely because his muscular frame had a higher center of gravity.
“Obviously we need to be really strong,” he said, “but we don’t want to be really bulky.”
So last year he altered his diet – he watches his calories and takes time to eat slower – along with his workout routine. The wholesale changes resulted in a loss of 30 to 35 pounds. While he’s always been in shape, it was, as Meier said, about becoming “lean ‘n’ mean and ready to ride bulls.”
He currently weighs between 160 and 165 pounds, which is down from the 185 to 187 a few years back. He admits that at one point, he was as light as 150 pounds, but felt too weak and wasn’t able to carry himself with the confidence needed to successfully ride bulls.
Now he does a lot more cardio – running and biking – as well as working in more reps with lighter weights. Then there’s the yoga portion of his regimen that has provided him with some of his most impressive results.
Like Ty Murray before him, Meier relates his yoga workout to what a gymnast would go through.
“I used to think that yoga and Pilates was kind of a chick thing, and why the heck would some guy need to do it,” Meier explained. “But I added yoga to my regimen, and what that’s done is add a tremendous amount of flexibility.
“It’s also allowed me to find that sense of balance even when you’re in an awkward position. Riding bulls, there are always times when your body is in an awkward position, but if you know where your center of gravity is at, it’s easy to come back to what we consider home base.”
‘Just keep it simple’
“We’ve always said he was an old man in a young body,” said Rex, who added that Austin has always been very coachable, whether it’s bull riding or football. “When he first got married, he enjoyed getting up at 5 in the morning and going to the coffee shop just sitting around with the old men. I mean the granddads and stuff … to have coffee with them. He’s always been that way, but he’s always been mature for his age.”
Much of Meier’s current success is due in no small part to his having matured athletically in the past two years.
“I reached a new level of maturity in my bull riding and the bulls I was able to ride,” he said.
J.W. Hart, who selected him for the last year’s World Cup, agreed. “Everyone matures differently. Some guys come on tour at 18 as good as they’re ever going to be. … I think (Austin) is really starting to hit his potential and I don’t know that he’s peaked yet.”
Looking back at last year’s breakout season, Meier admits he went through “a little mental game” in the middle portion of the season that kept him from finishing higher than sixth in the world.
According to him, everybody was “real hyped-up about catching your knots,” and for some reason he started worrying about it. Not only does he not catch his spurs in his knots, but he’s never been accused of the infraction.
“I got to moving my rope around and moving my feet around,” said Meier, who became paranoid that he too would get disqualified after making a great ride. “It just all boiled down to a big mental battle, and it caused me from riding a lot of bulls because I wasn’t doing the same old thing that I’ve always done.”
Referring to it as a “dumb” issue, he said he finally sat down with his dad and his longtime mentor David Bailey Jr. The three figured out what his problem was and corrected it.
It was Bailey who told him to “just keep it simple.”
“Like I said before, it all comes back to me stepping up to a new level of maturity,” said Meier, who called the entire situation pretty silly. “Once I got past that point, I’ve never worried about it again. And I believe I never will worry about it again.
“It’s one of those deals you learn from and go on and maybe advise a buddy if he goes through it later on, because there are times when we all go through silly battles like that.”
‘I like to think it’s pretty’
On the back of a bull, Meier feels the most comfortable when he has big, deep holds with his feet, is out over the front with his arm in front of his body, and lifting on his rope.
“I like to think it’s pretty,” he said with a smile. “Some guys don’t think it’s pretty. But it’s effective.”
If he’s really feeling comfortable, he’ll “try and pull foot” and spur his bull, especially if it’s going away from his hand. He quickly admits he won’t be spurring from the ear down like Jared or Pete Farley.
“Some guys really ride with a loose rope and it’s completely all balance,” Meier said, “but I’ve always pulled a real tight rope and I try to be gritty. You have to find a happy medium…because you can’t ride bulls strictly on balance and you can’t ride bulls on strength alone.”
Over the past couple of seasons, he’s continuously worked on improving his sense of balance and maintaining his gritty approach.
In 2009, he covered a career-high 44 bulls, recorded a career-best 51.76 percent riding average, was chosen to represent his country at the World Cup, and won $199,260.70. Looking back, he said the key to fulfilling his potential has as much to do with heart and try as anything else.
“You can be the greatest bull rider in the world technique-wise and ability-wise,” he explained, “but if you don’t have the heart and the try to do it, you’re never going to make it. At this level, there will be times when you’re banged up and sore and your body is telling you that you don’t really want to get on, but your mind and your heart says, ‘You’ll be all right. You can rest when it’s over.’”
An escape route
Meier, who turned 23 last month, doesn’t plan on retiring from professional bull riding anytime soon. But unlike some of his fellow riders, he has a pretty well-defined sense of direction in life—both in and out of the arena.
“It’s not a guessing game, and it’s not something that I have to sit there and scratch my head and wonder about,” said Meier, who estimates the mid-30s as the average age of retirement from this sport. “I know when I’m done riding bulls I’m going to be raising cattle on a ranch and hopefully doing a lot of hunting with different TV shows.”
Meier said that knowing what he plans to do with the rest of his life really helps him to focus on bull riding without all the other distractions and worries that life at home can sometimes create. In fact, he likens it to hunting bobcats.
An avid hunter, Meier explained that if you put a decoy out in the woods and turn it on, then the bobcats have something to go after. However, if you call them without having that decoy, then they don’t know what to look for.
“Same thing with a person,” he said, “you give them something to go after, and if they know what they’re going after, they’re going to go try and get it. You don’t give them any direction, and they’ll run around lost all their life.
“You have to know yourself and know what you’re about and know what it takes for you to win—not your buddies. Winning comes easier for some than it does for others. But you have to know what it takes for you to win.”
And if you happen to be married, it also helps if your spouse understands what it means to be married to a man’s man who makes his living as a professional bull rider.
His wife Kristen, whom he first started dating in 2004, had to make a real adjustment, and learned almost immediately how dangerous the sport can be. Only couple months into their relationship, Austin had his head stepped on. The force of the impact broke both sides of his jaw, and doctors needed to use plates and screws to put it back into place.
There have been terrible wrecks and countless injuries since.
“It’s tough on her,” he said. “She knows I’m tough, but being tough doesn’t fight back the tears that your wife cries. It scares her, and I think the day I retire will probably be one of the happiest days she’s had.”
It’s a career that can be emotionally tough, which is why it’s important for Meier to have something to occupy his time that has nothing to with bull riding.
Aside from his family, there’s ranching, and of course, there’s hunting. Or just about anything else that will keep him outdoors.
“When I’m hunting I can honestly say there probably hasn’t been three times that I’ve thought about riding bulls,” Meier said. “When I’m hunting, that’s what I’m thinking about – hunting – and riding bulls doesn’t cross my mind.
“I see other guys who don’t have that release, and so far into the season you can tell it’s starting to wear on them. Their mind is getting tired.
“As any professional athlete there has to be… I guess you could say an ‘escape route,’ to give yourself time to mentally relax,” he continued. “You might not physically relax, but to just mentally get away from it and let things get simple again.”
ODDS and ENDS
See Austin Ride: When asked what one thing fans don’t know about him, Austin Meier chuckled and said, “I wear glasses.” Actually he’s worn contacts forever, and “very rarely will you ever see (him) with glasses on.” In fact, most of traveling partners – past and present – haven’t seen a spectacled Meier, who hardly wears glasses even when he’s at home with his wife Kristen. “They see me,” he explained, “and they’re like, ‘Whoa, when did you start wearing ‘em?’”
Only once has his poor eyesight affected him during a bull riding event. That was last August in Brazil, when he was competing in the World Cup. The bull he was riding hit him so hard it knocked both his contacts out. U.S. captain J.W. Hart and others were yelling for him to push the challenge button, but he couldn’t see where it was, so he yelled back for one of them to push it for him.
