Now that club periods seem to no longer exist, Wednesday assemblies seem to be inevitable. So this Wednesday, we all wondered who would be speaking and more importantly, about what.

Imagine how curious we were when we entered the Thunderdome and saw a man with no legs sitting in his wheelchair. The man was Rohan Mario Murphy. We could have never expected listening to someone with such perseverance, determination, and personal strength and wisdom. Rohan spoke about his disability (getting his legs amputated at a young age) and how he did not let it hinder his passion for sports. He still reminisces about feeling left out of sports and of life during his rough elementary school years.

In eighth grade, Rohan was approached by a school coach, Ron Croteau, who Rohan says “changed my life forever for the better.” Coach Croteau suggested Rohan begin wrestling in high school. In the next few weeks, Rohan incredibly began the strenuous journey to ultimately become a three time All-League and two-time All-County wrestler by the end of his athletic career.

Becoming successful at wrestling was not easy. Rohan spoke of an intense wrestling camp he attended during the summer. He told us about a steep hill that everyone at the camp had to climb. Rohan remembers thinking “I can’t sit this one out. Some how, some way, I will get to the top. No excuses.” This mindset, according to Rohan, is how he leads his life to this day. At this point of his speech, Rohan showed us how he climbed the hill by walking on his palms up the risers’ stairs.

Climbing that hill proved to be a milestone is his life. The challenge proved to him how he could achieve anything despite his disability. After high school, Rohan attended Penn State, where he continued wrestling. However, he had to do a little convincing to let the coach let him on the team. To illustrate the moment for his story, Rohan demonstrated one of his signature move on Owen Han ’16, an abrupt take down to the mat.

What is significant to take away from Rohan’s story is his “never give up” attitude. “I can’t feel bad for myself” says Rohan “because I know there is someone else out there that has it worse than me.”

ODA students, like others across the nation that have listened to Rohan, responded strongly to Rohan and his story.

“I really liked it,” says Lauren Stewart ’14, “I went up to him with my friend and shook his hand and thanked him after.” Rohan stayed at ODA throughout the rest of the day and met with many ODA students.

The most common sentiment seems to be similar to junior Julia Bellanger’s basic response “It was a really cool story, and I thought he was awesome.”