By ANTHONY BOTTAN
He's Valley Stream North's lone captain and has a record of 22-3 with 17 pins. Overall, he's ranked No. 1 in Nassau Division II in the 135-pound weight class.
Rogan, 17, has dominated the competition this season, even though every one of his wrestling matches is shrouded in silence. Rogan has severe high sensory hearing loss and has to wear a hearing aid, but rules force him to compete without it. The only setback to wrestling in silence, he said, is that he can't hear the referee's whistle. "Coach says 'Don't stop until they tap you,'" said Rogan, referring to advice given to him by Tom Maddock.
The senior star at North has been wrestling since he was in first grade. His older brother, Joe, also wrestled at North and it was he who inspired Rogan to follow in his footsteps. But in third grade, Rogan failed a hearing exam, and from then on, he would need a hearing aid to communicate with the rest of the world. "[Students] treated him the same way," his mother, Linda, said. "He was very fortunate."
Hearing aid or not, nothing was going to stand in Rogan's way. He made the varsity wrestling team at North in eighth grade, is the catcher on the varsity baseball team and played wide receiver for the JV football team. He's been attending wrestling camps since he was 10 and plans to wrestle at Nassau Community College after he graduates in June. When asked why he liked wrestling more than other sports, his answer was simple. "I'm just good at it," he said.
Rogan's three losses this season came against two Suffolk All-County wrestlers and a Nassau All-County wrestler.
Maddock said Rogan is an excellent team leader, aggressive on the mat and the team's hardest worker. "He's a vocal leader," Maddock said. "He speaks up and gets the team going. He leads by example. No one works harder than him; he even gets annoyed when guys don't work as hard as they could."
The longtime Spartans coach noted that during matches, he likes to yell instructions to his wrestlers, but with Rogan's hearing disability, he can't do that. But it makes no difference, Maddock said, because Rogan doesn't need the guidance. "Not being able to communicate with him on the mat hasn't been a problem," Maddock said. "He doesn't need the guidance on the mat. He's good enough to just go out there and wrestle."
Rogan noted that he gained his competitive edge and leadership qualities by watching the older guys when he first joined the varsity squad. Because of his dominance on the mat, many of the younger guys overlook his disability because of what he has accomplished. "A lot of kids look up to him, so they overlook his hearing aid," his mother said.
Besides wrestling, Rogan enjoys taking his quad-runner for a spin at his family's house upstate, listening to rock music and going hunting. He got his hunting license when he was 14 and said he loves hunting deer with his dad and brother. If that wasn't enough, Rogan was named runner-up for Prom King at North.
Comments on this story? ABottan@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 246.
