Senior defensive tackles Josué Ortiz and Chuks Obi have been wreaking havoc on Ivy League offenses all season.

Any star football player can identify the moment when he realized football was his destiny. For Josué Ortiz, it was a broken wrist. For Chuks Obi, it was a look in the mirror.

Offensive lines across the Ivy League wish these moments had never happened.

A regional wrestling champion in high school, Ortiz thought he’d compete in both sports for Harvard.

But when a broken wrist kept him off the mat his freshman year, the Florida native decided he’d use his wrestling skills to make him a better football player instead.

“You find a lot of the same principles in wrestling that are in football,” he says. “It really helped me develop as a player my footwork, leverage...and hand-eye [coordination].”

While an injury forced Ortiz to drop his second sport, Obi’s decision to focus on football was the result of the realization that his build was a better fit for the gridiron than the basketball court.

“I joined football late,” Obi explains. “I started playing football my sophomore year in high school...and I made the realization that my size would benefit me more in football than in basketball.”

But it wasn’t enough for the athletes to realize that their skill sets were best suited for the football field. They had to convince college coaches to agree with them, no small task given that neither came from high school football powerhouses.

“I definitely had to go out on my own,” Obi says.

But their football prowess was enough to attract the attention of Harvard.

Once on campus, both Obi and Ortiz went from standouts in small schools to the bottom of the depth chart on an already strong Crimson squad. The broken wrist meant that Ortiz had to sit out his freshman season, and even when healthy the two defensive tackles had to pay their dues on the practice field and in the weight room before they were ready to step up as starters.

But last fall the duo hit its stride, with both earning second-team All-Ivy honors and becoming mainstays on the Harvard defensive line. Obi and Ortiz attribute their success to their adherence to the Crimson’s rigorous conditioning regimen.

“Our offseason program is incredible here,” Ortiz says. “I played behind pretty good guys, and when it was my time to shine, I had these years of weight room, so that’s why I could step up.”

“All my summers were spent here in the Cambridge area working out with the team,” Obi adds. “That’s definitely paid off.”

This year, the two seniors have picked up right where they left off, combining for 78 tackles and 7.5 sacks.