Team roping’s number system has been around, in one form or another, since 1990 with the inception of the USTRC.

That number system—now known as Global Handicaps—has turned team roping into a mammoth industry that generates hundreds of millions in economic impact for the Western industry each year. It draws both admiration and criticism, but its impact is far-reaching. 

A roper’s progress through the number system is a statistical indicator of ability. And perhaps those indicators are most crystallized in the early identifiers of greatness—with guys like reigning and back-to-back World Champions Tyler Wade and Wesley Thorp hitting the upper echelons early in their careers, with good reason. 

Now, kids like Cooper Brittain, a header who’s a 7 at 14, and Michael Calmelat, mainly a heeler who’s been a 9.5 since he was 12, are climbing even faster. What’s driving it? Better training, more exposure, upgraded horsepower and more effective gear (like ropes, saddles, etc.) are all fueling the rise, but what do the numbers say about the current greats?

Tyler Wade
2023-2024 PRCA World Champion

Heading Number at Age 14: 7

We didn’t go to a ton of jackpots—they had one big roping a month but it was usually a lower-number roping. There was little stuff around, but nothing that would’ve got your number bumped. I guess the US was the only thing at the time. We went to the US Finals every year, and then they had Waco and Bryan and other US ropings around Texas. 

I’m probably going to step on some toes saying this, but people get mad and offended now when they get their number bumped. And pretty much everyone I know who wanted to get better was proud when they got their number bumped—that someone was acknowledging they were getting better. When I got a 7, I was wanting it. I was ready to rope good enough to have an 8. I wasn’t trying to be a 5 that roped like a 7. I was proud every time I got my number bumped. 

Homeschooled? No.

Getting Better: I just jacked around. I wanted to rope good, but I was really just ate up with it. After we got done roping, we roped the lead steer. When we went in the house, we would watch old tapes—the old Hork Dog tapes were the best. We would rope goats. And then we talked about people’s roping—who roped best and how they swung and what they did. I mean, there wasn’t a run on an old tape that I couldn’t tell you what was going to happen before it happened.

Horsepower: I had a pony we bought for $500, and his name was Swamp Donkey. He had two names, really: Swamp Donkey and Water Moccasin. He would kick your head off and buck, but he was great in the box would drag his butt and you could run a hundred of them. I honestly roped really good on him. And then I remember my dad traded an Ammerman saddle to Boogie Ray for a horse we called Boogie. That was who I won the #13 Shootout and the #9 Prelim and stuff like that on at the US Finals. I went from a 5 to an 8-plus on that horse. My dad always made sure we had horses, and he never left me a foot or anything. In a way, he made me a lot better horseman for the most part; we trained our own or traded our own. We never went out and bought much until I was probably 16, and then my number got high enough that we needed some more horses.

Wesley Thorp
2019, 2023-2024 PRCA World Champion

Heeling Number at Age 14: 7.5

I had won a lot earlier that year as a 6.5, but then I had really good runs. I was set up pretty good at the US Finals that fall, and I felt like my partners were under-numbered, and I was under-numbered, at least probably half a number on each end. And then I had a really good US Finals, so I got raised right after. I think I won $79,000 that year.

My goal was always to get raised. I wanted to be the highest number the fastest I could be. But also I remember that, during that timeframe, I’d get raised and then think I needed to do more. Instead of doing what got me raised and slowly progressing, I would overdo things or speed it up, and I would always almost go backward a little bit after every number raise. 

I would get humbled enough that I would finally slow down, relax and try to find a groove. It would take me a little bit of time, and I would gain back up to my number. I would stand out more like I still roped good, but then I would get raised to a 7-plus, and I would rope in the 15 but try to do stuff I couldn’t do in the 15. When I settled in, I would get better headers and learn they if I just do my job, I would win. I would rope bad in the high numbers, and then start getting in my groove. To keep roping, I would get an under-numbered 4 or 5 and do good in the 11s and 12s, too. I was wanting to get better, wanting to rope in the high numbers—that was where I was wanting to plant my flag. But I sucked in the high numbers until I really got it figured out.

Homeschooled? No, I went to school every day. I played sports in junior high, every sport really. But I roped every day after school because football practices were in the morning. But when I was turning 15, I quit playing sports. I played basketball that year, but I quit playing football so that I could rope. 

Getting Better: There weren’t many people who roped around me, so it was mainly just me and my dad really. Or we had to drive to the Thompsons’ or Jeff Hilton’s or somewhere, but I wasn’t old enough to drive myself. 

I would have the Hork Dog on repeat—I would watch every roping video imaginable. I’d go to sleep watching it. And I roped the goat, the lead steer. If we didn’t, my dad might turn me a few or I’d go to the Thompsons or something to run some, but it wasn’t about quantity. I didn’t have much to rope on, and I didn’t have that many people to rope with, so if I ran 10 or 15 steers in a day, that was probably all I was doing. We had to ride to the county arena to rope, so I pretty much rode my horse every day a couple miles there. We would just ride up there, warm ‘em up, rope the lead steer, rope 10 or 15, and by then it was dark. So then when I got home, I would rope the Little Blue Heeler in the house for hours just to do it. And then when I went to sleep, I’d watch the Hork Dog on repeat and the old US Finals Open tapes and Spicer Gripp, the BFI tapes. 

Horsepower: The yellow horse I had was the best horse I had at the time, and then I had maybe one other one that I could heel on and then maybe had a head horse or two. But no, I did not have very many horses, and I mean, the yellow horse let me win, but I never did love him. Even when I had him, I always kind of went back and forth with him, so I never was very excited about my horse situation, but I also really hadn’t ridden many—at that time—I hadn’t ridden higher-end horses either. So I didn’t know much better, but I definitely didn’t have one either. 

Kaleb Driggers
2021, 2022 PRCA World Champion

Heading Number at Age 14: 5 (3 in the old number system before TRIAD’s creation in 2005)

I was 12 or 13 when we moved to Southwest Georgia. My dad took a different job because he was working the night shift a lot. So he took a new job where he could work during the day, and we could be around him more. He got to go with us on the weekends. At 14, I would’ve been heeling unless I was just messing around at the house practicing heading.

When I started heading, me and Clint (Summers) went to the US Finals, and I was a 6 and he was a 7. We were roping a lot of stuff, but we were roping in the 15, too. And my dad was sitting there watching, and we went and made a run and one of the guys sitting there said, “Wonder which one of them guys are an 8?” And that was just kind of speaking to our numbers. We always, for whatever reason, just had lower numbers because there were fewer opportunities out East.

Homeschooled? No.

Getting Better: I was definitely obsessed with it. I roped the dummy nonstop. And I think that’s probably what eventually led me into heading—the heel dummy can only be so fun to lay traps on. It doesn’t make a cool watch. I roped the head dummy a lot and never really thought that’s where I would end up. At 14, I was ate up with it. But you’re so far from everybody out here that I wasn’t even really thinking I was going to rodeo for a living. But it was definitely a dream. That’s why on all my autograph pads, I write “dream big”. 

Horsepower: I’ve always had one really good horse, and I don’t know if it was just luck or what the situation was, but I had a bay that Brad actually took to the George Strait and stuff when I was young, and I rode him for all the way until probably 2007. I’ve always had a pretty good A-stringer, no matter if I was heading or heeling. But we had a lot of horses.

Jade Corkill
2012, 2013, 2014 PRCA World Champion

Heeling Number at Age 14: 8 (6 in the old number system before TRIAD’s creation in 2005)

I went to everything I could back then. I headed a little bit. I mainly heeled. I guess it seemed like I won a lot, but it was so different. I caught a lot, so it seemed like I always had good partners and got a lot of steers turned. A few times, I won a couple shootouts or won the prelim and the shootout with the same guy when the USTRC used to have those regional finals. 

I don’t really remember thinking about my number back then. I probably didn’t like it because that meant I couldn’t go to as many ropings. I wanted to enter everything I could enter. That was the best part about being a kid. I didn’t worry about entry fees, and I just knew I was going to win. So I entered to the max every roping I could enter, and today, we’re always worried about what things cost and what we can win. As a kid, if there was a jackpot, I just went, which is probably a better way to do it. I did that when I was rodeoing full time. I mean, I used to not worry, but nowadays I’m a numbers guy, but that’s not a good way to be, and I don’t recommend being that way if you’re trying to make a living roping.

Homeschooled? I wanted to be, but my parents wouldn’t do it until I was in high school. By then, I was to the point that I had to go to the higher-numbered ropings on Thursday or Friday at the US Ropings, and if you missed a certain amount of school, they’d start docking your grades. I guess my parents thought I had a chance at making a living roping, so they decided to let me do it and let me work at roping more.

Getting Better: I remember for my birthday, Rickey Green came to Fallon one year and I went to his school, and he told me “good job” pretty much the whole time.  

But other than that, I just don’t think there was as much information, you know what I mean? Especially for me in Nevada. Out there, I wasn’t around anybody like the pro guys. I had the George Strait tapes, the BFI tapes and the US Open tapes, and then I got to look at the Super Looper when it came every month, and then the Roper Sports News. But unless you went to where the best were at, there was just no information. So it was trial and error for me mostly. It just came down to how bad you wanted to do good or not. I don’t even know if it was as much about the winning part. Obviously I wanted to win, but from the time I remember roping up to sitting here in this truck today, I lose sleep over missing. I hate missing. Me and missing don’t mesh very well together. Honestly, my driving force—why was I doing what I was doing—was just because I loved to rope, and I didn’t want to miss when I did it. Not practicing, not anywhere. It means the same thing to me at home as it does at the BFI or the NFR. 

Horsepower: I roped a lot and only had one or two horses, and we just roped until I was done—not until my horse was done. The way it was then was so different than it is now. Everybody runs four or five on their horse and puts ‘em up. There’s no telling how many I ran on my horses. They just got in shape for it, and they were fine. The more I roped, the better they got. 

I went to two—some days, three—people’s houses and rode Ice Cube until there was nobody else who wanted to head, and he got better. He was better on the last one than he was on the 20th one. You know what I mean? He literally got roped into submission, that one, but it was all I had. I couldn’t afford not to go. Buying an expensive horse wasn’t even really a thing back then. 

Jake Long
2024 NFR Average Champion

Heeling Number at Age 14: 4-5-6 all in the 1998-1999 season (2-3-4 in the old number system before TRIAD’s creation in 2005)

I won a two-horse trailer in Guthrie, Oklahoma. And then two weeks or maybe a month later, I won another little two-horse trailer in Pasco, Oklahoma. And they raised me fast, and my dad told me—this is going to be a little bit Ricky Bobby—but he said, “Your first shot’s your best shot.” And in my brain, that meant when the steer turns, throw—fast. It took me a long time to learn how to set the run up correctly, so I did things backward. 

Homeschooled? No.

Getting Better: I watched a lot of tapes. Me and Coleman (Proctor) watched the BFI over and over—we could have probably told you, run for run, what happened in the late ’90s and early 2000s BFIs. I could have probably walked you through the roping without even having it on the TV.

Horsepower: They weren’t super nice horses, but they were nice solid horses. I actually learned to heel on a left-handed heel horse named Gravy. She would come around and then right in the turn, she’d just step by the corner of a step. She was supposed to, I guess, for her training, and then I would just kind of throw blind.

—TRJ—