by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
The persona surrounding Live Oak senior Dylan Rockett is one of fearlessness.
Two weeks away from stepping out of his comfort zone, the two-time state champion powerlifter will board an airplane for the first time and compete in his first out-of-state meet.
“I’ve never flown before,” Rockett said. “I’m a little nervous. I have never been in a national competition before.”
Don’t mistake those concerns for a lack of confidence.
Rockett’s literally been in the clouds since last weekend’s record-setting performance, where he repeated as a state champion in the LHSAA Division I State Powerlifting Championships at the Pontchartrain Center in Metairie. He was also named the meet’s Most Outstanding Lifter.
A total weight of 1,820 pounds set a composite record, along with record-setting marks in the deadlift (665) and bench (480) – to go with a 675-squat – bringing to a successful conclusion Rockett’s lifting career, where he’s regarded amongst the state’s best to ever do it.
“It feels exciting, but as I drove off, it felt really weird to actually understand that I was done,” Rockett said. “This has been my whole life the last four years. I am coming back to coach (at Live Oak). It’s really been a life-changing thing that I like to think about.”
Rockett will be one of four lifters representing Live Oak High, and potentially up to 100 participants from Louisiana in the High School Nationals in Omaha, Neb. (April 16-19). The 800-mile trip to Nebraska, where he’ll compete in the raw division, will enable Rockett to match his immense ability against some of the nation’s best.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever met an athlete that I’ve gotten to coach that’s quite like him,” Live Oak powerlifting coach Cash Littlefield said. “When I say he’s a coach’s dream, just the amount of work he puts into his sport.”
Rockett’s performance was the centerpiece of the team’s best finish in school history, third place. The Eagles, who received top 5 finishes from Tyler Hernandez (114), Noah Navarro (123), Jacob Tibbetts (220), and Tyler Kelly (242), totaled 56 points, trailing only repeat champion West Monroe with 89 and runner-up Covington’s 66 points.
“It’s pretty crazy to think that when I was a freshman,” Rockett said of his total weight of 1,820 pounds. “I’d see those (standout) guys and thought that’s who I wanted to be like. I thought about the stuff that they did and how I could try to do more to get to that goal.”
Littlefield was in his first year at Live Oak, serving as defensive coordinator, when he encountered Rockett as a freshman football player.
Rockett started on the freshman team and dressed out on Fridays with the varsity team, but never played a down.
There were noticeable traits, such as speed and strength, that Rockett could rely on to play a sport that he generally had a passion for.
“I didn’t play a lot of sports when I was little,” he said. “I wasn’t really that good at them. I put a bunch of effort into football, and then I started working out with the idea of wanting to be better at football. I also loved to work out. I started liking it more and more, and I got to the point where I liked working out more than I did football.”
Rockett was unaware that the school fielded a powerlifting team until he ran across senior Landon Wall, who sold him on joining the team.
“I started powerlifting, and after a regional meet, I was super hooked,” he said.
Wall created the kind of example Rockett wanted to follow. Wall was a state champion as a senior during a span when Rockett noticed the advantages of powerlifting provided.
Rockett’s strength gains took him to the Division I state meet, where he was the only freshman who qualified. His total weight of 1,255 pounds was good enough for eighth place, but powerlifting struck a chord in his life.
“I was good at football, but I was a lot better at powerlifting, and I liked it a lot more,” he said. It just had this adrenaline rush to me. It was so much more exciting. I loved it. I thought football’s just not going to do anything for me, and if I lost powerlifting doing football, I think I’d regret it for the rest of my life.”
Powerlifting further gained a stronghold on Rockett following his experience at his first state championship meet. He enjoyed the sensation that came with walking onto the floor of the Lafayette Cajundome, where participants’ images were flashed above on the jumbotron.
“It made you feel special, you felt important being there,” he said. “It gave you something to work for. Watching Landon Wall win (state) really motivated me to come back and win.”
Giving up football was part of Rockett’s dedication to powerlifting. He took that to another level by changing his eating habits to include a week’s worth of meal prep and cutting out fast food.
“I went on a very strict diet, and I don’t think I skipped a workout in three years,” he said. “It’s like brushing my teeth. I loved doing it.”
Littlefield admired the measures Rockett took toward becoming one of the best lifters in the state.
“The stuff he knows as an 18-year-old kid about training,” he said. “The time he’s delved into the science of it. He bounces ideas off me. He’s really like having a second coach. He’s going to come back and be on our coaching staff next year.”
Rockett bulked up as a sophomore, competing at 198 pounds and was third in the Division I competition with a total weight of 1,545 pounds. He either reached or exceeded 600 pounds in both the squat and deadlift, while his bench press increased from 315 to 385 pounds from the previous year.
He opted to drop back down to 165 in 2025 and won his first state championship with a total weight of 1,555 pounds, led by a 610-pound squat and 395-pound bench press.
“It made me want to come back the next year,” he said. “I wanted to have the highest total in the state. I wanted to be the best lifter, which I was close to my junior year. It drove me harder than ever. It was the best offseason that I had. It motivated me a lot.”
Rockett, lifting at 181 pounds, started breaking records before the state meet. During his first place at the East Regionals, Rockett’s total of 1,815 pounds broke the state composite mark of 1,815 pounds previously held by West Monroe’s Christian Dunn, to go along with the bench press mark of 470 pounds.
“I told Dylan his freshman year that he was extremely strong,” Littlefield said. “He wanted to look at the records, and I pointed out Christian Dunn’s record and that it was the most impressive record I’d seen. I was there when he set that record. When Dylan broke it at regionals, he reminded me when he was a freshman, I said that it was the biggest record that he had seen.”
With a month separating the regional and state competitions, Rockett was just getting started.
Littlefield reminded his seniors to make certain he won each of his lifts to benefit the team before pursuing any records.
Rockett assured him that would be his strategy, but his final high school meets in his home state would have additional meaning.
“It affected me,” Rockett said. “I realized this was the last time I would be lifting under a team setting. I wanted to make sure everyone around me was working hard because I wanted us – both the boys and girls – to do the best we could.”
Live Oak’s girls had won the school’s first team championship, and Rockett certainly didn’t disappoint in his performance.
Rockett posted back-to-back lifts of 675 pounds in the squat, had consecutive lifts of 480 to break the bench press record, and after a 575-pound opener in the deadlift, came back with efforts of 665 and 675.
It was another record that helped lead to his overall total of 1,820 pounds, which was another composite record.
“I can tell if I’m going to have a good day or not when you start lifting,” he said. “It’s pretty easy to tell. I had a slip-up on squat. I hit the opener but had a technical problem by going too deep. I retook it and got it. After that, I thought if I was able to do that, I thought I would be alright. After the bench record, I knew that it was going to be good.”
Rockett allowed himself to revel in the moment, going with his family to Pensacola, Fla., while Live Oak was on spring break. During the family’s four-day stay, he took a day off from training before getting back into his element in the weight room and preparing for his first trip in an airplane and initial national competition.
“He’s obsessed with the sport,” Littlefield said of Rockett. “I love powerlifting. Dylan’s obsessed with it.”