Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

NORTH LIBERTY – Max Tafolla is a tough guy to stop.

Two seasons ago opponents couldn’t prevent Tafolla from getting to the ballcarrier as he led Liberty High in tackles in the Lightning’s varsity debut season.

Last season it was opposing defenses that failed to slow Tafolla as he rumbled for more than 1,000 yards and eight touchdowns.

This spring the coronavirus pandemic that cancelled spring sports and closed schools was equally ineffective in stopping Tafolla.

With the weight room at Liberty High off limits during quarantine Tafolla wouldn’t be denied his workouts.

“I think the biggest misconception when it comes to times like this is that if you don’t have a weight room you can’t lift,” Tafolla explained. “There are a lot of daily tasks that I found that are basically perfectly substitutes for lifting. It might not look like a conventional weight but that heavy log is the same amount as putting up back squats. I just found anything to get better.”

Tafolla has been instrumental in the building of the Liberty High program over the past several season.

It isn’t just his work on Friday night’s that has allowed Liberty High to go from 3-6 in 2018 to 7-3 and the 3A playoffs a year ago.

An avid weight lifter and notoriously hard worker, Tafolla has been instrumental in developing the hard-nosed, blue collar demeanor Liberty High coach Jeff Gordon wants in his program.

“What’s great about him is his work ethic,” Gordon said. “Everywhere he goes he makes people better because of the way he pushes himself.”

The 6-foot, 215 Tafolla has practically lived in the Liberty High weight room the past three seasons.

When the pandemic put a proverbial padlock on the weight room door last March he didn’t skip a beat.

Tafolla fashioned a bench press out of stakes and saw horses, using an old flagpole for a bar and tires for weights.

He carried old logs, squatted with pieces of wood or anything else he could get his hands on.

It was something out of the old World’s Strongest Man videos.

“Anything I could do from just carrying wood around to lifting heavy objects,” Tafolla said. “It might not seem like it does much but it does as much as anything else.”

While he couldn’t encourage his teammates in person the way he did during team sessions in the weight room Tafolla’s work ethic still caught on.

Fellow senior Kelby Telander built a squat rack out of wood. Other Liberty High players grabbed bags of sand or other items to use during their quarantine workouts.

“I was encouraging a lot of the team and a lot of the team was doing a really good job with it,” Tafolla said. “I think with all the obstacles that we’ve been through during this time I think collectively we’ve been pretty good at finding different ways.”

Doing the work has never been a problem for Tafolla who said he learned the value of work growing up working around the house.

It’s a labor of love for Tafolla who has rushed for better than 1,500 yards and 12 touchdowns and made 97 tackles, including 19.5 for loss the past two seasons.

“It’s just something that has been kind of engraved in my mind is hard work,” Tafolla said. “That really just helped with the entire process from March when we were coming out of the weight room with all the cancellations up to this moment where we are still lifting out on the field. It just kind of comes easy to me.”

Tafolla has showed he has the ability to impact the game on either side of the ball.

As a sophomore linebacker in 2018 he led Liberty High with 76 tackles and 13.5 tackles for loss.

Last season he focused on offense and averaged 5.7 yards per carry while rushing for 1,136 yards and eight touchdowns in nine games.

“He has never complained from the time we met him in fifth grade,” Gordon said. “He’s competitive and if he wasn’t playing tailback we’d play him at guard and defensive end.”

Tafolla said he will do whatever he is asked this season whether it’s offense, defense or even both.

After its off-season filled with unorthodox training Tafolla believes Liberty High is prepared to make the jump to Class 4A for the first time.

“I think going into the season not just me as a person but collectively as a team I think we are in way better shape especially coming out of such a situation where some people would just coast and sit inside and have the excuse that there wasn’t anything to do so I couldn’t do anything,” Tafolla said. “I think as a team we are coming into this season ready to go better than we ever have.”

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