While visiting with The Cowboy Channel’s Amanda Shaffer at her home in Stephenville, Texas, JJ Hampton shared her thoughts on the first ever Breakaway Roping World Championship being held during the 2020 Wrangler NFR.
When the announcement was made, Hampton was sitting in 15th in the World Standings, and for her, it all came down to the season-ending Cowboy Capital of the World Rodeo. Finishing third in Stephenville on the last week of the season, JJ jumped to first in the standings, meaning she’ll be roping at Globe Life Stadium come December.
“It’s a dream come true for a lot of us older girls who have been doing this for a very a long time,” she says. “There just really aren’t words. I think it will mean a whole lot more when you actually walk into the arena that day, and you’re actually roping in the same box, same score, same whatever, that the other cowboys are roping.”
“We’ve worked so hard to get this opportunity. It means a lot knowing that I am 49 years old and breakaway has come so far for all of the other girls who will be roping for years to come. It’s just such a blessing.”
Coming from a family of ropers, JJ has been roping since childhood, learning from her late father, Johnny Wayne Hampton, and grandfather, Johnny Hampton, who “really started it all for me,” she says. “He was my go-to person, who believed in me and taught me how to persevere and never give up. No matter what I did, my grandad thought I was great and that I could do anything.”
“To know that he and my dad are going to be watching from the heavens, and big Marty Yates, too, is kind of surreal for me, because we’ve worked our whole lives for this. And I know they’re going to have the best seats in the house, but gosh, I wish they were sitting in those stands for me. They were my biggest fans.”
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