When Viking Junior Jaret Rockenbach graduated from Benson High School, he was an improving shot putter, but, not among the state elite.

Portland State Head Track and Field Coach Ronnye Harrison, coaching at Benson at the time, saw something and encouraged him to walk on at PSU. And, that made his decision to enter the enter Park Blocks easy (From a Portland high school, he'd also always been interested in PSU and wanted to remain near his family and friends).
    
“I went out for track at Benson to have fun and originally wanted to be a sprinter,” recalled Rockenbach. Benson's coaching staff thought he'd make a better shot putter.  He started throwing and discovered that he “liked it a lot.” He liked that “You can see the results of your hard work. As your distances improve, it gets harder and harder, but all the training pays off.  You know you're getting better because you can see it.”
    
That willingness to listen to his coaches, combined with hard work and dogged persistence have him continuing to improve to the point that Harrison thinks Rockenbach could have a good spring and even better senior season next year.
    
“This is a learning year for Jared. He's switching from being a glide to a rotational thrower because his coach, Seth Henson, thinks he has maxed out as a glide thrower,” said Harrison, explaining that most people start as a “glide” thrower (a straight on approach to the throw) because being a “spin” or “rotational” thrower (a longer approach with a spinning motion) takes more balance and coordination.
    
But when Henson suggested the change, there was no hesitation.
    
“Every time he has told me to change something, I've gotten better,” Rockenbach said, a lesson he tries to pass on to his teammates from his position as a team captain this year.
    
Rockenbach mentor's younger athletes, said Henson. He tries to lead by example. “I try to show people to trust the coaches and you'll get a good result.” Although the change isn't easy and he's still more consistent with a glide approach, Rockenbach sees the promise.
    
“Glide is a corkscrew approach and there are more areas to mess up.  But, the spin gives me more time to develop power and throw farther,” he said.  Throwing is all technique, he said… Well almost all technique.
    
“Strength has a lot to do with it, but I've competed against guys who are stronger than me and I beat them with technique.  You can tell if you make a mistake with your technique because there's a huge difference in distance,” said Rockenbach.
     
Making the transition is just another goal for a very goal-oriented individual.  He sets goals for everything. Goals for weight lifting, technical goals and distance goals, “Anything you can measure”.
     
Goal setting is way to fulfill one of the lessons learned from his father Jerry Goodale, who he credits with his athletic career. “Without him I wouldn't be as interested in sports as I am. He turned me on to lifting weights and sports. He taught me how to focus and to work hard.”
   
Although his family isn't particularly athletic (his dad was a high school sprinter), Rockenbach said there was always a sports atmosphere around the home.

“Dad made me competitive, we're competitive together. We'd arm wrestle. He taught me that money is important but not everything. He taught me to do my best in everything I do,” he said.
    
And doing his best in sports includes not getting particularly depressed when he suffered a broken wrist in his throwing arm while training last season, which led to a redshirt year in 2010.
    
There was a time when he wasn't sure he was going to throw again and couldn't throw for five months.
     
“I look at throwing as the reward I get for all the hard work I do (although, he said he loves to train) and that made it hard to continue training,” he said. So, he was particularly pleased when he started to show improvement.
    
And if he hadn't been able to throw again? “Well, I just decided I'd have to look around for another event I could do.”
     
Rockenbach is carrying a B-plus average in psychology (“My parents told me to take classes that interested me”) because he's interested in why people do what they do and why they are who they are. His even-mannered approach to setbacks might be helped by that. It also might have helped him when his sister, Aura Goodale, died from cystic fibrosis his freshman year at Portland State.
    
“That wasn't easy, even though it was expected. But, I'm inclined to work harder and just try to focus on other aspects of my life,” he said.
    
He's not particularly interested in a job directly using his degree. He'd like to coach or be a trainer and his academic degree might be useful there, plus it's teaching him things he figures he can apply throughout his life.
     
He'd like to coach because “I enjoy it when my coach helps me improve my skills. I really enjoy that and would like to help someone else reach their goals. They would make me feel good.” Plus “I love track and I'd like to be involved in it as long as I can.”
     
Although he played a couple years of JV basketball at Benson, he “wasn't particularly enamored with team sports, so I was probably a little behind the others in my skills. In a solitary sport, it's all on you. You do or you don't. No excuses. If I don't perform, it's all on me and that makes me train harder. I like that aspect.”
      
He's having fun at PSU, although he has to remind himself to smell the flowers occasionally.
    
“I can get too caught up in reaching for my goals. I love to train and between training and competing I can forget I'm trying to have fun. Of course, it would be more fun if I was throwing further each time, but failure makes the success feel better.  I know I'll reach my goals," one of which is to be a factor in the Big Sky Conference meet, he said.
     
Coach Harrison agrees. As Rockenbach masters the spin approach, Harrison thinks he “could be a factor during outdoors this spring.  He just needs more time learning the rotational technique. Next year, indoor and outdoor, should be his best year.”
      
And that wouldn't be a bad way to go out for someone who started throwing just to have fun and discovered that hard work, goal setting and believing in your coaches can take you a long way.