At 28, Marcus Theriot’s been home changing things up a little. After rolling up the rodeo ranks with national titles in junior high, high school and college, the 2023 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo header and winner of the 2021 Cinch Timed Event Championship is spending more time at home in Lumberton, Mississippi this summer.
Q: What was life like growing up the son of a world champion (1994 World Champion Tie-Down Roper Herbert Theriot)?
A: It was never boring. We were always busy rodeoing, at somebody’s house and at big events. It was pretty cool that my rookie year in 2016 I remembered a lot of the rodeos from when I was there as a kid. There were a lot of opportunities being my dad’s son, like going and spending time at Roy Cooper’s place in Texas every summer.
Q: Did your dad teach you everything you know?
A: My dad taught me pretty much everything I know about being a cowboy, yes. There were things Roy helped me with that I’d already heard. He’d show me in a little different way, and helped me understand what my dad was saying.
Q: Take us back to your rookie year in 2016, when you were 18.
A: I roped with Reno Gonzales the winter of my rookie year, then Lane Mitchell that summer. We still laugh about it. We did not do bad for what we knew. Lane and I got turned out at almost as many rodeos as we roped at. We were just two kids who were clueless, and thought we roped pretty good. We did some good and had a lot of fun, and stayed out there until after Dodge City. But it was a huge learning curve, because we were just so green and had so much to learn. That next year, in 2017, Cody Doescher and I started roping the week before Reno and ended up 18th in the world after his good horse died with 30 days left in the regular season. That was a pretty big knockback. We thought we’d be a top-five team in 2018, but had a horrible year and barely made the buildings in 2019.
Q: You made your first Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in 2023 with Cole Curry. How big a deal was that for you?
A: It was really big. You work your whole life to get there. Everything we’ve ever done from the first year of junior rodeo is with the NFR as the end goal. It was a dream come true, for sure.
Q: Was roping at the NFR all it’s cracked up to be?
A: It was so different than I thought it would be. Everything in that arena is so electric. Looking back now, I don’t even remember more than two or three runs from there. Family. Fans. You’re a celebrity that week. It was definitely a big deal, but it was also kind of a blur.
Q: It took seven years to get over the NFR hump. What was the one thing that made the biggest difference?
A: Just being put in enough pressure situations. If you keep finding yourself in uncomfortable situations, you’ll eventually get comfortable in them. It came down to the last week of the regular season in Sioux Falls for us. We had to do good there, and we did. It takes horses, confidence and a lot of people behind you to get to the NFR, and we had that.
Q: Why was Cole the one who helped make it happen?
A: Some people try to call us cousins, but we aren’t blood relatives. My aunt married Cole’s uncle. We’re friends, and we roped good together. We went to the amateur rodeos, too, so we got to rope a lot together. I think that’s huge in a partnership.
Q: You’ve also been competing in the Cinch Timed Event Championship since you were 18, and won it just before turning 24 in 2021. Talk about that win, and what it meant to you.
A: That was right up there with making the Finals for me. It might have been even more special. That’s an event you work so hard for, and if the cards don’t fall right, you’re just out of luck. About anything can happen there. My dad won second there two or three times. My family was there when I won it, and it was a win for all of us. That’s an event you work so hard for. When you win the Timed Event, there’s no fluke to it.
Q: You team rope the most, is that your favorite event?
A: I love doing all of them, I really do. I don’t think I could pick one, and I love heeling just as much as heading. I’ve focused on the team roping at the rodeos, because there’s so much more of an end game in the team roping, including the horse market. The team roping is just so much bigger than any other event in rodeo. That’s why I chose to follow that direction. There’s also a lot less harm involved physically.
Q: We’ve seen you do a little limping in recent times. Where does that stand?
A: I hurt my right knee bulldogging several years ago, and had a full tear in my ACL. Then this year at the Timed Event, I fractured my tibia and reinjured my knee in the calf roping. I had an MRI done, and my knee’s stabilized for now. I’m thinking I might have surgery right after the Timed Event next year.
Q: You were in the world heading standings early on this year. What did you win and with who to put yourself in that position?
A: Me and Chase Graves won a good bit this winter at the Southeastern Circuit rodeos, and I roped with Wyatt Cox at the other winter rodeos.
Q: Why’d you slow up after such a strong start to 2025?
A: I’ve been rodeoing since 2016, so nine years. I haven’t been home, and I’m kind of a homebody. I run some cattle now, and that’s my main focus. I still love to rodeo, but I really like being home all week. So I’ve been running yearlings, amateur rodeoing and going to a few circuit rodeos.
Q: What’s your plan for the rest of 2025?
A: I’d like to try to win the circuit and these amateur associations around here where I live. I really enjoy going to them, and am having fun roping with Chase.
Q: Do you still have big hopes and dreams in the roping and rodeo world?
A: I’d love to make the Finals again, and win the Timed Event a couple more times. But to me it’s sad that people wrap their whole life up into making the Finals. I don’t feel like making the NFR is something you should define your life around. There’s a lot more to life than that.
—TRJ—
