Wisconsin's Bohannon bucks family tradition

CHICAGO - Jason Bohannon winced as he heard the question.

Which football team does the Linn-Mar product - a Wisconsin basketball player but the son of an Iowa Rose Bowl quarterback - root for when the Badgers play the Hawkeyes?

“This is a tough question for me,” Bohannon said. “Growing up I went to every home Iowa football game for 16 years. I still obviously take an interest in Iowa football and what's going on with it. But ... I'm a Badger now, and I'm a Badger in my heart I'd have to say.”

There was a time when Bohannon, a 6-foot-2 senior, had to choose among Wisconsin, Iowa and Stanford. It seemed almost automatic he would pick Iowa. His parents, Gordy and Brenda Bohannon, are Iowa grads. They wanted him to select the best school but rooted hard for Iowa. Bohannon was the oldest of four athletic sons and playing at Iowa would limit the family's travel.

But he had other ideas.

Bohannon, a shooting guard, liked the academic fit at Wisconsin, but he couldn't go wrong with any of the schools. Wisconsin now has a stronger basketball program, but in 2006 Iowa was coming off a Big Ten tournament title and a No. 3 seed in the NCAA tournament under former Coach Steve Alford.

“Looking at Wisconsin, you see Coach (Bo) Ryan. I knew it wasn't a short-term thing for him,” said Bohannon, a business marketing major. “He wasn't going to be there for only a couple of years, and then I was going to have to go through a transition with a new coach. At Iowa, there's always a possibility of that. You hear rumors, and being right there around Iowa City you hear those things.

“There's nothing against Coach Alford. I liked him; he's a great coach and stuff. But I felt really at ease and comfortable with Coach Ryan and Coach (Gary) Close at Wisconsin. I saw what they have in their program, and there's a lot of good things to come.”

Perhaps just as interesting, Ryan went after a legacy Hawkeye in Iowa's backyard.

“He told us early he wasn't locked into going anywhere else. He was open,” Ryan said. “He just liked the way we did things. He broke down film on his own. He pretty much knew that Wisconsin was what he wanted. We definitely wanted him, but the key is what does the young man want, and where are they going to be the most comfortable with the challenges that are presented?

“Jason is not afraid of challenges. That's why he's at Wisconsin.”

Ryan raves about Bohannon's improved ball handling and defensive skills. He's also improved offensively. In 2008, Bohannon earned the Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year Award. Last year he started every game, averaged 10.3 points and set Wisconsin's consecutive free-throw record with 39. Entering this season, he needed 214 points to reach 1,000 in his career.

His on-court success has led to some of the loudest jeers at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in recent years. When Bohannon touched the ball, boos rained from the student section along with shouts of “traitor.” Bohannon said the shouts were easy to ignore, but it was more challenging for his family to tolerate them.

“You come to expect that,” Bohannon said. “I grew up in Iowa, I went to Iowa games all the time when I was younger. So I'm a big fan of them. Then going somewhere else, it was hard but it was the right fit. Although you grew up with all that in the background, personally it just wasn't the right time for me to make a decision for that place. Wisconsin was the right time, right place.

“My mom kind of laughs about it now, but the first time she heard it she wasn't a biggest fan of it,” he said.

Each year, Bohannon checks the Wisconsin basketball schedule for that road game in Iowa City. This year the Big Ten spared him that journey. Iowa and Wisconsin play just once, and that game is early March in Madison.

In reflection, he remembers one of his first unofficial visits to Madison when his family watched Iowa play football at Wisconsin. His brothers wore Iowa gear, and his future Wisconsin coaches gave him good-natured ribbing about it.

“That was the first test for me staying neutral in those games,” he said, laughing. “It worked out all right.”

Yes, Bohannon is a Badger through and through.