Arizona buddies get biggest-ever win at COJO
When Travis Ericsson backed into the heeling box in Belton, Texas, this month as second-high callback in the 12.5 at the 2025 Cojo Championship Event with $100,000 on the line, he wasn’t alone. Since he was on his daughter Ellie’s barrel horse, Silky, he thought she might want to ride along with him.
“She was on the phone with me during that run,” said Travis. “I heard her, cheering in my pocket. She was so freaking excited.”
In Belton at recording artist Cody Johnson’s five-day roping event, Ericsson and Arizona native Jason Williams “drew the four best steers a guy could possibly imagine,” Ericsson said. They came tight on them in 29.15 seconds to win the average by a full second and that $100,000 cash prize, plus saddles, guitars and a full prizeline.
High callback had been Craig Dane and recent Hall-of-Fame inductee Steve Purcella – a world champion header who’s plenty salty on the heel side these days. But when “Cheese” didn’t get to throw his rope, the Arizona natives clinched the win.
It was a 10-hour drive for Williams, who lived for years in Laveen, Ariz., until he moved to Kansas with his family five years ago. But the headquarters of the COJO production team, Ullman Peterson Events, is in Phoenix.
“I actually knew the chute help,” said Williams. “I know everybody from Arizona. It was awesome. The steers were really good. I think out of 30 short-round teams, there were only four missed and maybe four legs.”
But it wasn’t just the Arizona ties or the six-figure check that made that COJO 12.5 win special – it was the fact the champs were such good friends. Williams’ neighbor had told him the COJO was a great roping last year. So, Williams called his old Arizona buddies Ericsson and Glen Crane of Buckeye to enter the 12.5 and 10.5 with him, respectively.
“Trav and I always do really good together – I was so excited that me and him won it,” said Williams, who ranks the win right up there with his 12.5 championship at the WSTR Finale in 2016. Matter of fact, he and Ericsson would have been high call in the 12.5 in Vegas last year but slipped a leg.
“Roping with him, I don’t worry about anything because I know what he’s going to do and he knows what I’m going to do and there’s never any pressure,” Williams said. “Whether he misses or I miss, we don’t care – we know we’ll enter another one.”
They were a 13 team for years, and now that they’re older, they’ve been able to enter the 12.5.
“We drew good and we’ve both got good horses,” said Williams. “It was awesome.”
The money will be nice for Ericsson, who recently bought Jake Barnes’ old place in Rio Verde. He didn’t go to Texas solely for one roping, he said. Ericsson, who sells Broken Arrow Crop Insurance nationwide, had some clients in Texas to visit and decided he might as well throw his horse in the trailer and try his luck.
Granted, his luck didn’t start out great in Belton – one partner hooked a stirrup and never got to throw his rope, and for the other one, Ericsson said he tried to cut his hand off.
“That thing where afterward, your thumb won’t work, that’s what I did,” he explained.
Meanwhile, Williams was glad he didn’t know he was Ericsson’s last chance. But still, he said he loves to rope for big money. He and Crane placed 12th in the 10.5 Businessman’s roping, too, to split $8,000. They’d likely have won it, except for their leg in the short round.
“I don’t get nervous,” said Williams, who owns investment properties with his wife, Pamela. “If I ever do, it’s on the first steer, because that sets the tone for the day. But otherwise, it’s just, ‘Go win money.’”
Williams was riding “Jet,” the black gelding he traded from Ky Redstrom for a roan. And Ericsson said Silky, 9, is one they raised by their son of Peptoboonsmal. Ericsson, who has three daughters, has been making rope horses throughout his life and is known for his prowess at “wild cow catching” in the Arizona desert.
“I always dreamed of having this place, but I couldn’t see any way of coming up with the money,” said Ericsson of his new digs east of Scottsdale. “I once asked Jake [Barnes], ‘How do you build a place like this?’ And he said, ‘Travis, I built this place one loop at a time.’”
Loops like the one Ericsson threw at Belton surely contributed. In the meantime, he and Ellie ride about 20 head of Travis’ own young horses daily with the help of Clay Snure while Ellie is home-schooled. She turns steers for her dad already, having just turned 14.
“Just this weekend, she was able to put the COJO trophy horse blanket on her Silky,” Travis said. “He is her ‘heart horse!’”