It's always important that patients know where your doctor comes from. Recently Dr. Harris was featured in an article in his alumni college Wartburg magazine. So I figured it would be great to share this with our family of patients to get a glimps of what Dr. Harris is all about and how lucky we are to have him on our team at Four Points Family Chiropractic. Here is the full article....
The signs pointed toward Texan Harris coming to Wartburg
by Saul Shapiro
Now a chiropractor, Dr. Bolden Harris got on a bus to Waverly and didn't look back
Sometimes the signs guiding an individual can be akin to omnipresent billboards along life's highway. That's been true for Dr. Bolden Harris, an Austin, Texas, chiropractor and member of the Wartburg College Alumni Board. As a senior at Martin High School in Arlington, Harris dreamed of receiving a scholarship to play college football. Didn't happen. However, he had a 90 percent academic scholarship to the University of Arkansas.
Then the signs started to emerge.
"I also wrestled and was ranked number one in the region," Harris recalled. "Somebody saw me in a tournament and knew (Wartburg wrestling) Coach (Jim) Miller. They suggested that I look at Wartburg. I didn't know anything about Iowa, and it didn't interest me. "A couple of weeks later, I was reading an article about how Randy Schneider, the recruiting coordinator for the football team at the time, who was from Arlington, had arranged a bus trip to bring football players up to Wartburg.
"I thought, 'If God keeps putting this school in front of me, I need to take a look at it." So in the summer of 1997, Harris made the trek north and liked what he saw. "I looked at the college and found that it had a great biology program. I wanted to be a pediatrician, so I thought that this would be a perfect fit," he said. "It was a small school. I had gone to a very large high school and had been lost in the shuffle. I could play football, and it offers a great education. So I decided to take the plunge." The plunge came with a small academic scholarship - he had applied late - and a heavy dose of homesickness.
"After my first semester, I contemplated transferring some place closer to home," he said. "My dad said to stay for another semester and stick it out. I stayed and fell in love with the school. It really started to grow on me." Harris was a four-year starter in the defensive secondary on football teams that went 35-6, including an unbeaten 10-0 regular season, Iowa Conference championship and NCAA playoff berth during his junior year. Harris was an all-conference selection during his senior season. Rather than detracting from his studies, football was helpful, Harris said. "There's the discipline of just playing the sport as well as learning discipline through your coaches," he said. "It keeps you focused, because your whole day is regimented."
Signs then directed him toward his career. An ankle injury had sidelined Harris during his junior year. Despite extensive rehabilitation efforts, it wasn't improving. He was worried about playing as a senior. "I saw my chiropractor down in Texas. He's from Iowa and went to Palmer (College of Chiropractic), so we would always talk about football in Iowa," Harris recalled. "He adjusted my ankle - I had no idea that chiropractic worked with ankles - and instantly my ankle was 100 percent. I thought, 'This is so cool, why didn't anybody tell me about this?' "So I got my physical with my family doctor, and I told him I was interested in becoming a chiropractor. He rolled his eyes and said, 'Here's a couple of people who will talk you out of it.' I was so offended because I knew how much it helped me, and I was determined to become a chiropractor."
Harris enrolled at Palmer, intent on becoming a sports chiropractor and working with both athletes and children. He graduated as the valedictorian of his class. He now works at Four Points Family Chiropractic in Austin.
Harris has embodied the Wartburg service ethic as the team doctor at the 2006 National Wrestling Coaches Association Tournament in Dallas, participating on three volunteer chiropractic trips to Brazil, Nicaragua and India, and as a delegate for Barack Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
"The volunteer chiropractic clinic usually is in a very impoverished part of the country," he said. "It just touches your heart, because these people don't have anything. Just to be able to help them is refreshing. It's pure service. You get a hug, and that's your payment."
His political involvement may be a sign of things to come for Harris. "It was a phenomenal experience, and I am aspiring to get involved in politics at some point," he said, "but I'm not really sure what I want to do yet. Who knows, maybe I will become a U.S. senator some day."
The Democratic convention wasn't the only event happening in Denver that August. "It was ironic that Wartburg was having an Outfly about the same time," Harris said. "So Wartburg came and picked me up, and I went out there for Outfly."
Eleven years earlier a Wartburg bus had picked him up in Arlington to start his journey toward a career and service - a trip he's glad he made. "I was really excited to go to Wartburg. I was very happy with my experience. The education I got was top notch. I loved college. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. I made so many great friends," he said. The signs pointed toward Texan Harris coming to Wartburg.
Monday
7:00 am - 12:00 pm
3:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Tuesday
7:00 am - 12:00 pm
3:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Wednesday
7:00 am - 12:00 pm
3:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Thursday
7:00 am - 12:00 pm
3:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Friday
7:00 am - 12:00 pm
Saturday
8:00 am - 1:00 pm
Sunday
Closed
Four Points Family Chiropractic
10815 Ranch Rd 2222 Bldg 3C, Ste 100
Austin, TX 78730