Roger Huerta

Huerta has had a long and difficult early childhood right up to his teen years, overcoming many challenges and has been described as having the "life that Hollywood producers make movies about". Born to Lydia and Rogelio Huerta in Los Angeles, California, he spent the first 6 years of his life in Texas. His father became heavily involved in drugs and alcohol and began an affair with another woman that led to a separation with Lydia. Huerta's mother became physically abusive, and when Huerta came to school with bruises covering his body, Child Protective Services intervened, placing him in a foster home for a short time. In 1990, Lydia lost the custody battle for Huerta and fled the United States with Huerta, age 7, to her parent's home in El Salvador. Shortly upon arriving, Lydia abandoned Huerta leaving him in the care of his grandparents at the time of the El Salvadoran Civil War. She returned a year later to only leave him on his father's doorstep in Texas. That was the last time he saw his mother. Huerta openly talks about the mental and physical abuse he endured from his father and stepmother in that year. The next year he was relocated to Mexico and left with his father's parents living in poverty. They would often send him out into the streets selling picture frames to tourists to make money. For a brief time, his father and stepmother came back into his life where they moved to the Rio Grande Valley and enrolled him half way through the year into 3rd grade. At 12 his father left home, and soon after Roger was kicked out by his stepmother. He lived on the streets for many years and survived by joining a youth gang. He often slept in alleys and on rooftops, but was encouraged by his friends to remain in school where he could eat a provided breakfast and lunch. He occasionally stayed with friends and just before his freshman year, his life began to turn around for the better. Maria King, his friend's mother, obtained legal custody of him and the three moved to Austin, Texas where he attended Crockett High School. For one of the first times in his life he found himself in a stable environment and became quite popular in school and joined many of the school's sports teams including football and wrestling. It was there he met Jo Ramirez, his English teacher, where she learned about his troubled childhood in a conversation discussing his future ambitions. Furthermore, Bryan Ashford, the school's wrestling coach, took a special interest in Huerta and continued to support him in division wrestling. Ramirez, already a mother of seven, adopted Huerta in 2002 at the age of 19. Ashford coached Huerta and with the help of Ramirez, aided him in applying for a collegiate wrestling scholarship. Huerta attends Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota with one year remaining in a Business Management bachelors degree and resided in St. Paul, Minnesota.