An Austin High School grad is hanging up the spurs and lacing up a pair of cleats.

After five years of riding bulls, Erik Akkerman, who lives in Rose Creek, is trading the sport for one that is just about as dangerous – fighting bulls or rodeo clowning.

Now that he is retired from riding bulls for eight seconds, he’ll focus on fending them off as fallen riders hit the dirt.

“In some aspects bull fighting is a little more dangerous than bull riding because you see way more bulls on a given night,” Akkerman, who graduated from AHS in 2003, said. “But it’s also a little safer, because I’m on my own two feet and I have more control over the situation. It’s kind of a give and take.”

The 24-year old construction worker started riding bulls when he was 19 and he hasn’t looked back since. In 2007, he started fighting bulls as well as riding them and he eventually figured it would be better to make a switch.

“I finally decided that my body was beat up and tore up enough that I needed to quit riding and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did two years ago,” Akkerman, who is the son of Jay and Rhonda Akkerman, said. “Now I’m kind of getting beat up even more. But I love the adrenaline rush and the thrill of being six inches from a two-thousand pound animal, touching his nose and grabbing his horn.”

While riding bulls, Akkerman rode mainly in the Circle C Rodeo Association and other bull riding associations. He rode in lots of fairs in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri. His biggest victory came in 2005, when he was Senior Division (ages 16-19) Reserve Champion at Circle C Rodeo in Alden, Iowa at season’s end.

He also had his fair share of rough falls. In April of 2006 he had a bull step on him, fracturing three ribs and knocking Akkerman out for eight to 10 minutes, which left him with a concussion.

He also had an incident in Rockwell, Iowa in August of 2007 where his hand got hung up in his rope and he was spun around like a helicopter blade for almost eight seconds before he was pulled loose. He pulled every muscle in his chest up to his arm and hyper extended his elbow and wrist.

Now Akkerman is on the other end of post-fall incidents and he’s glad to return the favor for some of the fighters who helped him out.

“Once buddy of mine broke two ribs fighting a bull I was riding. Then I took a hit for him a couple of years later when he was riding,” Akkerman said. “You’re risking your own life and limb to save another guy when normal people are saying ‘what the heck are you doing?’ But that’s my job and that’s what I’m going to do. If it means I’ve got to break a leg to save a bull rider, that’s what I’ve got to do. A broken leg will heal.”

Years of being on the bull have helped Akkerman learn how to handle it when a fall happens. He usually goes straight to the bull to get its attention away from the fallen rider, but if a rider falls and is unconscious, Akkerman will lie on the rider and cover him until the bull is controlled.

“I’m used to being on the back of a bull, so I can see when an accident is about to happen and I need to get in there,” Akkerman said. “I can make decisions quicker and more efficiently, because I understand what the bull rider and bull are doing.”

With the sport sometimes becoming a matter of life and death, Akkerman said bull riders and bullfighters are a very tight knit group.

“It’s a whole new family,” he said. “Someone may not like you, you may not like them but you still do your job. I’ve still got to save his butt and he’s still got to say thanks. The friends that you make in this sport are so much closer than any other sport, because we’re willing to risk our life and bodies for our buddies.”

Akkerman will been hired to by the St. Peter Rodeo Company out Audubon, Iowa as a bullfighter next summer and he hopes to eventually get his professional bullfighters’ card so he can bull fight for Professional Bull Riders Associaton.

“I’m going to get my feet wet a little more and get my name out there,” he said.

The path to bull fighting was not an easy one for Akkerman to find in the middle of Southeastern Minnesota, where rodeo is not a huge sport.

”It’s a lot tougher getting into rodeo in this part of the state,” he said. “I’ve had to go to Iowa and Nebraska to get my name out and really say ‘I’m here. My farthest rodeo will be 11 hours away in Johnstown, Nebraska over Labor Day weekend this Septemeber.”

But one thing is for sure. If there are any bulls roaming Southeast Minnesota, Akkerman will probably be the first to grab it by the horns.