From Benchwarmer to League-Best

When senior Josue Ortiz first donned a Crimson jersey, he seemed destined for a middling career in Harvard football.

“He was just so raw,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy said. “Yeah, he was a good-looking kid, although pretty lean. But he looked stiff, and he just didn’t know how to react to blocking schemes. He was very unsophisticated in a football sense.”

Oh, how times have changed.

Fast forward four years and 40 pounds, and the fifth-year defensive tackle is the centerpiece of the Crimson defensive line. A third-team All-American and a first-team All-Ivy Leaguer last season, Ortiz is widely considered one of the best—if not the best—defenders in the Ancient Eight.

And he’s only gotten better since last year.

“I’m lighter, but I didn’t lose much strength,” Ortiz said. “I feel like I’m a more well-rounded athlete this year, and I think that’s going to show when we get into the season.”

But Ortiz’s dominance of the Ivy League is a relatively recent phenomenon.

After red shirting due to an injured wrist his freshman year, Ortiz’s role was limited as a sophomore, appearing only three times during the season. Things just weren’t clicking for the Avon Park, Fla. native, and he was a far cry from the player who eventually would dominate opposing offensive lines. The situation became so bleak that the Economics concentrator contemplated quitting during spring practices in 2009.

“I wasn’t playing very well, and it didn’t look like things were getting very good,” Oritz admitted. “I thought about, at that point, taking a year off or leaving or just not playing.”

After discussing it with his teammates, Ortiz opted to wait until the end of the spring to make a decision.

“It’s very dishonorable to just go to spring ball and then quit midway,” Ortiz said. “I ended up finishing the spring [because I] actually did not have that bad of a spring ... I just stuck with it.”

At the end of the school year, in a meeting with Murphy, the coach effectively labeled Ortiz a disappointment up to that point.

“I feel like that was the turning point right there,” Ortiz said. “That’s what really motivated me.”

He stayed in Cambridge over the summer to work with the team. He gained 15 pounds. And then, all of a sudden, the then-240-pound defensive tackle started to take off. Despite not starting in 2009, he played in all 10 games, was fifth on the team with 35 tackles, and tallied two sacks. For his efforts, he was named to the All-Ivy League second team.

But it was during his senior year­­—his third year of eligibility because of his red shirt—that he truly became an elite player. He put on an additional 20 pounds, and for the second year in a row, made huge strides from year to year.

“[Ortiz] just had this extraordinarily quiet hunger to be the best football player he could be,” Murphy said. “And every year, you just said, ‘Wow, I can’t believe how much Josue has improved.’”

During the 2010 campaign, Ortiz notched sacks in each of his first three games and never looked back, registering 15 tackles for a loss and 7.5 sacks–good for first and second in the league, respectively.

“He has developed amazing quickness and violent change in direction,” Murphy said. “He’ll grab somebody, rip him this way, and push his body the other way. And it’s like ‘shh.’ Two ships flying by in the night.”

Ortiz also has a knack for the big games, especially elevating his play on Harvard football’s biggest stage: The Game. Over the past two seasons, he’s had 18 tackles in the two victories, and in last year’s edition, he had 1.5 sacks. More importantly, he forced a fumble and blocked a key punt en route to a 28-21 victory.

“There’s always a lot of pressure ... but I feel like I feed off of it,” Ortiz said. “The other thing is the rivalry issue. You just get so involved in it that you can’t lose to Yale. You will do whatever it takes.”

A relatively quiet individual, Ortiz also knows when he needs to become vocal on the gridiron.

In a 2010 game against Columbia, after the Crimson defense let up a big pass, Ortiz turned around and urged the defense to step up its play. The line responded, shutting down the Lions. Harvard eventually won the contest, 23-7.

“Off the field, he’s a very smart, articulate, and funny guy,” captain Alex Gedeon said. “But when he’s on the field, he’s definitely one of the most intense players I’ve played with. In the middle of a game, he’ll turn around and be pumping guys up.”

In the Columbia contest, Ortiz also had a monster game, playing a role in two Crimson interceptions while recording two tackles for loss and a sack. Thanks to performances like those, the secret of Josue Ortiz is out in 2011.

“I mean, he’s an All-American, so most teams would try to avoid him at all costs,” said junior defensive tackle Nnamdi Obukwelu. “That sort of changes the defense, knowing that the ball is probably going to be run away from Josue.”

But Ortiz hasn’t let last year’s accolades or the hype surrounding this season change his soft-spoken, humble nature.

“He’s a very, very accomplished individual on the field,” Obukwelu said. “But if you meet him—just talking to him personally—he’s not a very cocky individual. Very humble, very down to earth. Very religious guy.”

And certainly, the accomplishments haven’t dulled Ortiz’s focus and intensity. This year, he hopes to record 10 sacks, lead the league in tackles for loss, and—most importantly—take home an Ivy crown.

So coming into his final season in a Harvard jersey, Ortiz has become anything but a middling Crimson player. Considered by many to be the strongest player in the league—he can bench 450 pounds—he has transformed himself into one of the best Harvard defenders in recent memory.

“He’s one of those once-every-five, once -every-10-year type of guys,” Murphy commented. “He has NFL strength ... and he’s developed tremendous instincts ... He’s special.”

—Staff writer Robert S. Samuels can be reached at robertsamuels@college.harvard.edu.