NC State's Rohskopf used wrestling to turn life around
By Taylor Miller
USA Wrestling
Confident, rugged, intense, highly motivated. These are some words that Max Rohskopf’s coaches and teammates at North Carolina State use to describe him.
How did he develop this lifestyle of motivation and immense focus?
Rohskopf learned from an early age that not everything in life is handed to you. In fact, sometimes basic needs aren’t always guaranteed.
Rohskopf didn’t grow up in an ideal setting. He was raised by a single mother, who left his father for safety reasons. She took Rohskopf and his two brothers when he was only about 5 years old. The divorce left the family with nothing, not even a place to live.
“My parents got married pretty young, and my dad inherited his family’s farm so the first five years of my life I grew up on a farm. We were doing well. When I was young, he almost killed me and my mom,” Rohskopf said. “After that, there was a period of two or three years where we were just living with various people. My mom didn’t have a job; she was a stay-at-home mom so when my parents got a divorce, we were left with nothing. We were kind of in and out of friends’ houses. We moved in with my grandparents at one point.”
Eventually, the family settled into a trailer in the middle of a cornfield outside of Killbuck, Ohio, where they stayed until Rohskopf left for college.
The situation took its toll on Rohskopf individually. He struggled with disciplinary issues, getting into fights while at school.
One fight in seventh grade landed him in the principal’s office. At the time, the principal was the head coach of the wrestling team and suggested Rohskopf try out the sport.
“I walked in the first day and just fell in love with it even though I was terrible,” he said. “At that point, it was a way for me to physically exert myself without getting into trouble. I was just always an aggressive kid so I took well to wrestling. When I started out, I wasn’t good. There were nine kids in my class that were wrestling, and I was the worst one out of all of them. I remember a couple of club coaches talked to me and preached the same thing that every other coach preached. Basically it was you get out what you put into it. You can take it as far as you want to take it. That has just really stuck with me.”
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USA Wrestling
Confident, rugged, intense, highly motivated. These are some words that Max Rohskopf’s coaches and teammates at North Carolina State use to describe him.
How did he develop this lifestyle of motivation and immense focus?
Rohskopf learned from an early age that not everything in life is handed to you. In fact, sometimes basic needs aren’t always guaranteed.
Rohskopf didn’t grow up in an ideal setting. He was raised by a single mother, who left his father for safety reasons. She took Rohskopf and his two brothers when he was only about 5 years old. The divorce left the family with nothing, not even a place to live.
“My parents got married pretty young, and my dad inherited his family’s farm so the first five years of my life I grew up on a farm. We were doing well. When I was young, he almost killed me and my mom,” Rohskopf said. “After that, there was a period of two or three years where we were just living with various people. My mom didn’t have a job; she was a stay-at-home mom so when my parents got a divorce, we were left with nothing. We were kind of in and out of friends’ houses. We moved in with my grandparents at one point.”
Eventually, the family settled into a trailer in the middle of a cornfield outside of Killbuck, Ohio, where they stayed until Rohskopf left for college.
The situation took its toll on Rohskopf individually. He struggled with disciplinary issues, getting into fights while at school.
One fight in seventh grade landed him in the principal’s office. At the time, the principal was the head coach of the wrestling team and suggested Rohskopf try out the sport.
“I walked in the first day and just fell in love with it even though I was terrible,” he said. “At that point, it was a way for me to physically exert myself without getting into trouble. I was just always an aggressive kid so I took well to wrestling. When I started out, I wasn’t good. There were nine kids in my class that were wrestling, and I was the worst one out of all of them. I remember a couple of club coaches talked to me and preached the same thing that every other coach preached. Basically it was you get out what you put into it. You can take it as far as you want to take it. That has just really stuck with me.”
Read Full Story
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