There they are yet again. Two rings, each one seven inches around, hanging down just above his head. Nebraska senior gymnast Robbie Kocks stares up at them as the spotter behind him whispers words of encouragement.
But the veteran gymnast already knows. It’s late April in Norman, Oklahoma, at the men’s gymnastics NCAA Championships, and Kocks wants to be No. 1. He constantly has visions of himself up on the rings doing his final routine at nationals. Every time he sees those images in his mind – the rings, the lights bouncing off the blue mats below – chills jolt down his spine. He knows he can make it there, and that’s what’s motivating him the most.
Throughout his accomplishments, including becoming a Husker gymnastics record-holder, 22-year-old Kocks could barely make it through the day without feeling exhausted. He blamed his fatigue on his active lifestyle.
He knew something was wrong when he dropped 20 pounds this summer.
“I was just getting really bad stomach cramps after eating. Eating anything,” Kocks said. “I finally went to a doctor about it, he sent me to see a gastroenterologist, and they told me I had Crohn’s disease.”
According to the Crohn’s Foundation of America website, Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory bowel disease where the body’s immune system mistakes good bacteria in the intestines with harmful invaders, so it attacks the bacteria, causing a multitude of symptoms.
Kocks had already looked up what Crohn’s disease was before he was even diagnosed, so he was a little bit prepared. In the back of his mind, he kind of knew he had it.
Despite being diagnosed with an untreatable disease, Kocks said he doesn’t think it will affect his season. Without even knowing he had it, Kocks dealt with it all last season and still placed third in the conference championship.
“I get these flare ups where my body just aches and it feels like you have the flu and a heavy body,” Kocks said. “Everything just hurts. I always wondered why I was so tired all the time, and I always associated it with my high intensity, but it wasn’t.”
Crohn’s disease can cripple its victims with vicious, painful flare-ups, as they’re called.
Without any warning, a storm of nausea, abdominal pain, fevers and more can stop a person’s day. Each victim suffering from the disease will have his or her own private hell made up of variations of these components, but all will share the guarantee of loss of normal life, and the knowledge that there’s no cure.
Crohn’s disease is diagnosed in about 1 in 10,000 people every year. Through the constant feeling of having severe influenza – loss of appetite, fever and tiredness – Kocks decided long before his diagnosis that he had other plans for the next few years and the rest of his life. He’s a person with Crohn’s disease, not Crohn’s disease.
“I swore to myself that it would not get in the way of my gymnastics and it would not hinder me at all,” Kocks said. “In my abilities, or my mindset, or in my life.”
Kocks described Crohn’s disease as a rollercoaster. He said the biggest thing he has to focus on is taking care of his body and reading off what he is able to do every day. Kocks said dealing with the disease has been the hardest thing he’s had to deal with but thinks it couldn’t come at a better time.
“I think it just makes me stronger,” Kocks said. “It’s good that I’m able to manage it. It’s not treatable, but it’s definitely made me stronger. It’s helped me to stay positive in crappy situations because no matter what happens everything is going to be just fine.”
Nebraska coach Chuck Chmelka said Kocks’s diagnosis is beyond sports.
“It was scary,” Chmelka said. “You never know what is going to happen or what it is exactly. We’ve been pretty fortunate with the time given to him, so he can figure out what he needs to do, and we got lucky that it wasn’t during the season.”
If Kocks was diagnosed during the season, then he probably wouldn’t have been able to compete this year, Chmelka said.
Kocks is on a medication called Remicade that he said helps tremendously with his symptoms so he can practice pretty efficiently. Every six weeks, Kocks has to get infusions of Remicade, works by blocking the actions of a certain natural substance in the body. This helps to decrease swelling and weaken Kocks’ immune system, thereby slowing or stopping damage from the disease.
“My coaches have worked with me the entire semester,” Kocks said. “I think communication is the biggest thing with it. I’ve missed several practices with procedures, infusions and everything. But I think they trust in my abilities and they trust in what I bring to the team and everything that I want for all the guys, so its unbelievable how much trust my coaches have in me.”
Kocks said it’s normal to get discouraged, and he does from time to time, but he bounces back pretty quickly.
“My teammates have supported me a good amount,” Kocks said. “Any time I’ve wanted to talk about my disease, they bring me up, and they literally tell me ‘You’re Robbie Kocks, you can do anything.’”
Chmelka said Kocks was pretty scared about life. But since his diagnosis, he’s more determined than ever.
“I think he realizes that he can be OK, and that he has his entire senior year to be great,” Chmelka said.
Kocks said he still has visions of the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, Oklahoma, and all of his coaches there watching his final routine as a Husker. The visions will never cease to give him chills. Regardless of any adversity he has faced or will face this upcoming season, Kocks said nothing is stopping him from realizing his National Championship.
“Nothing has changed,” Kocks said. “This disease is not something that’s going to hinder me and I’m not going to let it. I really do believe because of this, and everything I’ve gone through, I believe I’ve become a better person and I think I have a better step up on the competition because of it.”
When Kocks started to wonder if he was going to stick around for a fifth year at Nebraska, he decided he had to change his life.
It was toward the end of his third year. The criminal justice major from Lawrenceville, Georgia, competed in only four meets that season. He consistently scored a 14.00 or higher on still rings, but he knew he hadn’t tapped into his full potential.
Kocks had a fifth year of eligibility because he redshirted his first season as a walk-on for the Huskers. He started wondering if he should stick around because he did have another year to compete. He knew if he were going to do that, he would have to give 150 percent and leave nothing on the blue mats of the gym floor.
“I said to myself, ‘If I put everything toward gymnastics and every moment in the gym was spent well, then I could do it.’”
Kocks knew where he wanted to be, and he knew he wanted to be at Nebraska, but he said he had to commit everything to reach that goal.
“I said to myself, ‘How great am I able to become?’”
Kocks said his coaches “put a little spark into him.” They would constantly say he had the potential to be an All-American on rings; Kocks just didn’t really understand how.
It was at that point, nearing the end of his third year, when he started to understand how to get there.
“I found out what motivates me the most, and I started thinking about doing the right things in and out of the gym,” Kocks said. “When I started doing all the right things in my whole life, that’s when I started seeing the most improvements in the gym.”
Coaches and teammates started to look up to Kocks and rely on him late in the season last year when his team faced a handful of injuries and sickness that was swapped between one another.
With everyone counting on him, Kocks said Nebraska was the place to be. From that moment on he was constantly thinking about how to become better.
“‘What can I do in the gym?’ I was constantly thinking,” Kocks said. “‘What can I eat before practice?’ I tried to find all the right things to eat so I wouldn’t cramp up. In the gym, I started training smarter, working on the right skills for rings and training with consistency.”
Outside of the gym, Kocks said he had to change his lifestyle as well. He said his mind wasn’t in the right place when he came to Nebraska.
“It was about having a normal experience; going with the flow, but once I started to understand my purpose here and how much of an opportunity I had, that’s when I started to change,” Kocks said.
Chmelka said Kocks has grown amazingly during his tenure at Nebraska.
“He was a walk-on – he wasn’t even our most talented walk-on – when he came to Nebraska,” Chmelka said. “His first year was rough. You kind of lose focus when you don’t compete. It was a struggle at first, he did some things outside that he shouldn’t have done, but he has become a man and has been getting better and better as an athlete over the years.”
Kocks almost didn’t stay. After weeks of deliberating whether a fifth year of eligibility was the right thing for him he made his decision. He wanted to commit everything to the rings and leave school on top, so he’s staying.
Since his decision, he broke the school record on rings twice, achieved five personal bests, earned third place at the Big Ten Championships, finished seventh in the nation on rings overall, 11th at nationals, he was named to the Second team All-Big Ten, he was the 2014 most improved of men’s gymnastics at Nebraska and earned the weight lifter award of 2014.
“It’s been the greatest experience of my life here at Nebraska,” Kocks said. “It’s crazy because I’ve had so many people tell me how I’ve gone literally from nothing to being a school record holder and team leader this year.”
Chmelka has high expectations for Kocks. He said he doesn’t want to put any pressure on him, but the goals are to win a Championship and be an All-American.
“Every position on rings has to be held and just nailed. If he sticks a landing here and there I know he can get there,” Chmelka said.
Earlier this season, Kocks was voted team captain of the men’s gymnastics team.
“Robbie is total leader in and out of the gym,” Chmelka said. “Every day he brings incredible work ethic. He went from struggling in school to excelling in all areas. It was just about effort. That’s what life is – you have to work. Nothing is going to be given to you and he knew that. Now that he realizes that, he has the chance to be great.”
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