Feature
Crunch-Time Cowboy

On call with Dr. Tandy Freeman, the orthopedist-to-the-stars of the bull-riding circuit.

By Katherine Gould

This article appeared in the Oct. 31, 2004, edition of Los Angeles Times Magazine.
     
In a trailer behind an arena on the dusty outskirts of Laughlin, Nev., Dr. Tandy Freeman, the
head of the medical team for the Professional Bull Riders Tour, examined the throbbing shoulder
of bull rider Mark Ward.
     Ward's injury came not in one of the bone-crushing, spine-chilling wrecks that draw millions
of fans to PBR events live and on TV; Ward just landed wrong. He flew off the bull like a rag
doll, came down in a lump in he dirt, like bull riders usually do, and got up clutching his right
arm.
     During the replay on the jumbo screen, the audience gasped and groaned as they watched, in
slow-motion, Ward's arm take the full weight of his falling body, making a motion no arm
should ever make. Freeman saw it from his usual seat atop a rail on the arena's edge, and was
waiting when Ward walked out of the ring. Ward said he'd felt the shoulder pop out of the
socket and back in again, so Freeman sent him off with a trainer to await a full examination.
Later, on TV, Ward was laughing with other cowboys, tape securing a huge plastic bag of ice
under his Western shirt. But despite the levity, Freeman knew Ward was worried.
     It was mid-September, a month away from the start of the two-weekend PBR World Finals
in Las Vegas, which conclude today. A total purse of more than $3 million would be up for
grabs, and it was a bad time for a cowboy to dislocate a shoulder. After eight years as the rodeo
crowd's primary-care physician, Freeman has seen enough dislocation to know without an MRI
or X-ray when one is serious. An orthopedic surgeon based in Dallas, Freeman has built his
practice by rebuilding shoulders, elbows, legs, knees and ankles smashed and broken in a sport
that is one of the toughest on the human body.
     At each of 29 PBR major-league events during the year, Freeman and three certified athletic
trainers--Peter Wang, Rich Blyn and Tony Marek--take care of 45 cowboys with a lifetime's
worth of injuries. The trainers tape old wounds, help cowboys stretch, teach rehabilitation
exercises, provide ice packs. "They do all the hard work," says Freeman, who earlier in his
career was the team doctor for the Dallas Mavericks. He works with high school athletes and
pros, including the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Assn., from which the PBR split 12 years ago.
     Of all his patients, the bull riders are the toughest, thriving on a sport that treats their bodies
like crash-test dummies. With them, Freeman handles injuries more common to auto accidents,
such as blunt-force trauma and large-bone fractures. But he also understands the rodeo culture,
where competitive men make their reputation--and living--in harm's way.
     "Other doctors, if you hurt your little finger or something, they tell you, 'You can't ride,'"
says 23-year-old Cody Whitney, who was told after breaking a shoulder at about age 12 that he
shouldn't ride anymore. "He tells you what he thinks and then he'll let you decide. He knows we
have to make a living and this is what we do to make a living. Most of the guys, if he says, 'I
don't think you should get on,' they won't, because that's how much they trust him."
     Freeman, a town-raised kid who has never ridden a bull, is taller and less lean than the
riders, but nonetheless has their same easy drawl and loping gait. He also wears boots, jeans, a
Western shirt and cowboy hat to help put his patients-to-be at ease. It must work. Before the
competition starts, they approach him one by one, their bravado set aside, asking quietly:
"Tandy, can you look at my knee?" "Dr. Freeman, I wanted to talk to you about my back." "Dr.
Tandy, remember I sent you some X-rays of my ankle a few months ago? It's still giving me
trouble." To each one, he stops and says, yes, he'll take a look. His steady hands press here and
there. "Does this hurt? Does it hurt here?"
     To any injured cowboys who needs to travel to Dallas for surgery or tests, Freeman extends
a relative's hospitality. Earlier this year, Ross Johnson broke ribs and pulled ribs off his
backbone. Freeman treated him then, but when Johnson started having trouble later, he called
Freeman. "He thought I was having an allergic reaction to something that he [gave] me, so he
got up out of bed--3, 4 in the morning--and came to check on me and make sure I was doing all
right."
     "I think he does a lot for the bull riders that most doctors probably wouldn't do," says Jim
Sharp, who has at different times torn apart both shoulders, and who carries Freeman's phone
number in case he's injured away from a PBR event. Says another rodeo veteran with a
twice-broken neck: "I trust Tandy next to my wife and God."
     When the Laughlin event is over, Freeman motions Mark Ward to the padded exam table. He
slowly moves Ward's arm up and down, forward and back. "Does this hurt? Can you press
against my hand?" Several times, Ward contorts his face in pain and his body bucks on the table.
Freeman doesn't flinch, concluding that Ward may have torn or broken the rotator cuff. Ward
looks up at Freeman with a mix of worry and trust bordering on reverence. "You tell me what to
do," Ward says, "because I got to be good in a month."
     Several days later, after reviewing MRI and X-ray results, Freeman decides that Ward may
have partly torn his rotator cuff tendon, pulled a ligament off the ball of the bone and bruised the
bone itself. He concedes that Ward's shoulder needs more than four weeks to heal, and
eventually may require surgery, but tells Ward he can probably ride in the finals. Because
freeman knows this is what bull riders do, and that he will be sitting atop a rail at the edge of the
ring in Las Vegas this weekend, watching for the next cowboy who needs him.
Katherine Gould - (818) 635-2886 - keg@katherinegould.com