Warren Buffett once defined “partnership” as an emotional alliance between two people who are committed to each other’s success.
Anyone who’s team roped has ridden that roller coaster of meeting—and not meeting—partner expectations. Now, amplify that by 10. Because, while winning with your spouse means double the money, losing can have a tendency to follow you into the house.
Several partners at the earliest USTRC ropings are married to each other. Here’s how some of America’s winningest husbands and wives navigate practicing and competing together—and their words of advice.
Marina (Linke) Hadley, a longtime 5 header, always feels the most pressure roping with her husband Tom, who was a 7 for decades. But it makes it that much sweeter when this Wyoming team wins the money.
“There was one fall when we won everything,” recalls Tom of terrorizing teams at the biggest 1990s jackpots from Montana to Nebraska. “We won three different ropings at the USTRC Regional Finals that year. I made more money in two months than I’d made working on the ranch all year.”
Practicing together so much—and even winning—has a tendency to give spouses the expectation they should win. Hence, pressure. Marina won so much jackpotting in the old days that Tom’s buddies would rib him about her carrying the team.
Out in California, Tammy (West) White says her husband Ryan always took the blame when they didn’t win. Ryan says that’s probably true because, in her prime, Tammy rarely missed. These two met when Ryan needed a header to help him fill his PRCA permit. Together, they were California Circuit Rookies of the Year and made their circuit finals three or four times afterward. They married in 2000 and founded Best Ever Pads a couple years later.
“It was cool being able to win at the PRCA level with her,” says Ryan. “We placed at every major rodeo out here, and that’s when California had so many guys going to the NFR.”
Nevada’s Nora (Hunt) Lee says she’ll never forget being introduced horseback alongside her husband Tommy just prior to the short round of last year’s #11.5 Finale. They didn’t have any luck. But Nora, a sports psychologist by trade, says the key to enjoying roping with your spouse is keeping it fun.
“Tommy says, ‘We don’t do this for a living,’” she pointed out. “He and I are both ultra-competitive, so I wouldn’t say we’re good losers. But we’re not going to pack it around too long. He definitely taught me that. We’re going to eat ice cream on the way home whether we win or lose, you know?”
This pair split $15,640 for winning an #11.5 at a New Year’s jackpot in Wickenburg last year with some 500 teams.
“It was so great,” recounted Nora. “I had struggled hard that day and just wanted to go home. But we kept knocking them down and won enough to bail ourselves out of Christmas.”
That extra sweetness of a marital win also hit the Monteras of Colorado last year. Jimmi Jo (Martin), a Hall-of-Famer and world champ, has won so many awards that her husband Rick advised her to just take the cash in lieu of the saddle next time. But then the #11.5 team won their first saddles together—and that trophy was special enough for her to keep.
Give and take
Florida’s Rhonda (Morgan) Holmes says she’ll never forget one particular win with her husband Jay.
“I think it was Westcliffe, Colorado, on a holiday weekend,” recalls Rhonda, whose hubby’s best man at their wedding was Hall-of-Famer J.D. Yates. “I had just started heading on Jay’s good horse Yellow Crush, and he was real spooky. I came off him and got drug down the arena. But we got another steer! And then we won it.”
These two are finally getting to rope every day. They relocated last summer to a new facility in Sumterville, where Jay is the head trainer for Steve Munz’s Riata-eligible rope-horse prospects coming out of 5M Livestock Company.
“It’s just special, roping with your spouse or your kid or your dad,” says Rhonda, who was raised by lifelong team roper Butch Morgan.
It’s said that the best partners complement each other, and it’s no different for this team. The Holmes’ 40-year marriage started during Jay’s stint working at the King Ranch and lasted throughout their years at Sarasota’s Triple J Ranch. Rhonda’s always managed Jay Holmes Performance Horses.
As for the Hadleys, Tom is just as laid back as Marina is intense. Thus, they used to switch horses.
“My horse would get lazy, and hers would get on the muscle,” recounts Tom. “She would head on my heel horse and get him up in the bridle and I’d heel on her head horse and mellow him out.”
That kind of give-and-take is familiar to Arizona’s Nick Sarchett, a former NFR heeler who backed into a heel box the first time decades ago with his future wife Jody (Peterson)—for many years a 6 header—at Scottsdale’s big Westworld USTRC Qualifier. They won third.
Jody’s demanding job as the CEO and president of insurance brokerage Marsh McLennan Agency means that Nick, over the years, often has the arena ready and the horses saddled so she can just commute home and shake a loop out. Jody, a finalist for In Business Magazine’s 2024 Women in Achievement Award, says he’s also great at tuning up her head horse and watching the score for her.
Love language
Jay Ellerman married Tammy (Hinman) in 1979 before heading steers at five NFRs for Bobby Harris, Walt Woodard, Rich Skelton, J.D. Yates and Jay Wadhams. Jay admits that practicing with your spouse can cause stress and suggests you don’t take it out of the arena. But inside the arena? It’s tough to be among the best in the world and not be vocal.
“I’m maybe too critical in the roping pen,” says former NFR heeler Brad Smith. “But show me somebody who loses with a good attitude and I’ll show you somebody who doesn’t win much.”
Brad and Barrie (Beach) of Stephenville, Texas—also married since 1979—still practice together at their home arena. Brad heeled at the 1978-85 NFRs for the likes of Bill Parker, George Aros, George Richards and David Motes. Over the years with Barrie, whom he refers to as his best friend, he’s won “some really big ropings,” including a Title Fight.
Pressure between partners is inevitable, he says, considering how tough paychecks have gotten and how much horses and rigs and ropes cost today. Brad’s advice is that, when things go wrong, don’t say a word. Let it cool down.
“I used to not be very good at that, but I’ve gotten better at trying to keep quiet,” he says. “When you have time later, then talk about it. When the money’s up, it’s always discouraging when you don’t win, and you’re more apt to say something to your spouse than your other partners.”
Meanwhile, the Wilsons of Wyoming are very apt to say something.
“We just hash it out,” says Willow (Nicholas) Wilson, who enters circuit rodeos and jackpots with her husband Todd, and admits they’re brutally honest with each other. “He’s got to go home with me whether he likes it or not—he can’t just fire me!”
Todd recalls that when they were in college, it took him three years to get Willow to enter a jackpot with him. They won that roping by 2.5 seconds.
“We’re all team ropers and we all know how it goes out here,” he says. “There’s a value in someone saying, ‘Get your head out of your butt and quit overthinking it.’ She can talk smack to me and tell me what I need to do, and sometimes I get mad, but usually when I think about it for five minutes, I realize she was right. I don’t take losing well and she’s right there with me, out for blood every time we enter.”
Basically, they reckon that if they didn’t care about each other, they wouldn’t try to help each other rope better. But isn’t there a famous quote about familiarity breeding contempt? When Tom Hadley heard about the roper wife who asked her clinician husband why he didn’t speak to her in the same nice tone of voice he used with his students, Tom quipped, “Because it was her 50th school.”
Perspective matters
Jimmi Jo Montera likens trying to help your spouse with trying to help your kid—they may not want to hear it from you. She and Rick, instead of coaching each other, typically get tips from an outsider like NFR hand Charly Crawford, who stopped by their place last summer. Later, they can remind each other what he said.
And lest jackpotters be on the hunt for a spouse who does not rope so that life will be more peaceful, just realize there’s another side to that coin.
“My ex-husband didn’t rope, so it was an issue when I went roping,” Jimmi Jo says. “You have to pick your trouble.”
The risk of “coaching” your spouse is that it could offend, in some cases. When Tom grumbles about the comment Marina once made in the truck on the way home about some other guy who “didn’t let the steers go right,” she starts laughing, saying, “Tom, that was 20 years ago!”
In their 33 years of marriage, Hadleys’ only disagreements have happened in the arena. The best way not to get “a little crossways,” according to Marina, is not to coach each other. However, Nora and Tommy have been together 26 years, and Nora says she trusts Tommy’s coaching.
“He’s leveled me out for a long time,” says Nora. “He’ll tell me simple things, like just to swing my rope more aggressively. I’m like, ‘Could you not have told me that on the first steer instead of the fourth?’”
Now he starts off with that advice. But honestly, Nora’s too smart to rope with anyone who throws shade—and that includes her spouse. The key to making the practice pen “a safe place,” she says, is being complimentary of each other.
“It’s like the love languages—you need to learn how to talk to each other,” Nora explains. “And don’t take things personal. We’re blessed to get to do this. In the old days, if Tommy had too many partners, I’d tell him, ‘Just cut me.’ But now, we absolutely won’t do that. You never know how many times you’ll get to rope together, so we don’t cut each other anymore.”
That perspective of gratitude and grace also guides the Ellermans, who have a 15-minute rule.
“No matter what happens in the arena, you get 15 minutes and you’ve got to get over it,” says Jay. “It’s just roping—it’ll be better next time.”
As for Ryan White, the only time he recalls Tammy ever getting upset with him in the old days was when he was upset with himself.
“At the end of the day, it’s just team roping,” says Ryan, who felt all the feels in 2024 when Tammy and their son Colton won the 2024 Hale Kea 6 Steer—or “BFI of Hawaii” created by Ryan’s dad—decades after they’d won it as a couple.
Still, no one’s better at perspective than Jay Ellerman, who’s shown a thousand rope horses and schooled countless ropers over four decades.
“You have to remind each other that you’re good at this, and you always have to put God first,” he says. “It’s hard to do a lot of times. We get so wrapped up in roping—we love it and it’s what we do—but you have to think, ‘Hey, this does not matter; this is what we do for fun.’”
The Sarchetts, who’ve chased most of their 26 years of steers together at their home arena in lieu of entering 15 ropings together, feel lucky. They focus on the steers they get to run in sunny Cave Creek each winter and are grateful for the past few summers they’ve been able to spend roping in Jody’s native Montana.
“We are so fortunate to be able to do what we love and ride and rope as a family,” says Nick. “My advice is to keep that hugely in perspective.”
—TRJ—
