ITHACA, N.Y. -- The recruiting pitch came in passing.

Aiden Compton, a two-sport athlete in high school, was focused on wrestling at Cornell. The Cornell football coaches used the Friedman Wrestling Center recovery facilities and kept running into him. Every time, the line was the same, and it was always a joke: "Hey, you should come play."

Compton laughed it off. He had come to Cornell to wrestle, and that was the plan. But the joke kept coming back for two years.

Then last year an injury cost him time, and he started doing the math.

"I got two years left of this," Compton said. "There's nothing to lose. Let's give it a shot."

It wasn't a random leap. Compton grew up in a small Pennsylvania town, where his class had about 130 students, and played football on both sides of the ball. After transferring to a private school with a nationally ranked wrestling team, he started at left tackle before a torn ACL changed his focus. He gave up football his senior year to chase a state title in wrestling and later committed to Cornell. Football recruiters, he says, had told him he was too small anyway.

So before anything else, he had to clear it with Mike Grey, the David Dunlop '59 Head Coach of Cornell Wrestling. Cornell wrestling's motto is "family, not factory," and Compton takes it literally.

"I knew if I was to join the football team, I would never leave the wrestling team," he said. "If [the coaches] didn't allow me to do both, I would have never played."

Coach Grey and the wrestling staff surprised him.

"I didn't think they were going to take it well, but they took it really well," Compton said. "They've been supporting me ever since."

Last December, he emailed Dan Swanstrom, the Roger J. Weiss '61 Head Coach of Cornell Football, and offensive line coach Sean Reeder, even name-dropping the former defensive coordinator, who had since been replaced. "It was kind of funny," he said. The meetings came quickly, and Swanstrom could tell he was serious.

"I was pretty adamant about joining the football team and making a big impact," Compton said. "That's kind of just how it went."

By the end of wrestling season, he was already in spring ball.

First came the weight. Compton went from a wrestler's build, "getting close to having abs," to roughly 300 pounds, adding 45 to 50 pounds in about two and a half to three months.

"You have to, though, playing offensive line at this level," he said. "Having extra weight really does help get guys off the ball. I could not do that at 255, 260 pounds."

He had help. During spring ball, he and a few new friends on the team, including Nolin Thompson, woke up at 5 a.m. for extra lifts, four or five times a week on top of the team's regular workouts, with smoothies and breakfast afterward.

"The coaches thought we were nuts," Compton said.

The harder adjustment was the playbook. "In wrestling, you could just be a tough guy and wrestle hard, and you kind of get away with it at times," Compton said. "Football is not like that. There's some guys that are maybe not the most athletically gifted, but if they know what they're doing, they're going to be in the right spot and get their assignment done. That's the hardest part for me."

"You have to understand everything," he said. "In practice, you read the script, you do the play, and that's your one rep. If you screw up, you lose the rep."

The locker room took time, too. Compton describes himself as a very loud person, but he stayed quiet the first couple of weeks so he wouldn't set the wrong tone, especially as a guy who hadn't played football in years.

"I kind of just did me, and then a couple of weeks into it, it kind of exploded," he said. "I was just one of the guys."

Part of that was wrestling. Some of the linemen had wrestled in high school, and early in the season they started messing around in the facility, with Compton showing them leverage and hand-fighting tricks that might help a pass rush or a block. Junior defensive lineman Tommy Ducker, whom Compton credits as one of the teammates who made the transition easier, was a regular. So was Tyler Dunn, a 6-foot-5, 300-pound lineman who never wrestled but loved it.

"He's taking shots on Tommy," Compton said. "He doesn't know what a shot is. It's great stuff."

Wrestling's lessons showed up on the field, too. It's a lot of pulling, grabbing, pushing and lateral movement, all of which translate to the offensive line. But the biggest transfer, he believes, was mental.

Compton says he brings a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of character and a lot of oomph, and he believes that has made an impact on the guys on the football team. "No normal person wrestles," he said. "I think me joining the team, it rubs off on a lot of guys that maybe need it."

That grind is coming back. Once football season ends, he'll return to wrestling full time, and he knows what's waiting.

"I think they're going to really abuse the idea that I'm really out of shape," Compton said. "But I love to train. More than being an athlete, I love to train."

He has a lot going on outside the lines, too. Compton runs a landscaping business in the summer, with a couple of football teammates on the crew, and he did a few of his coaches' houses this year. He works at a hospital and is looking at the pre-med route in the classroom.

"I did a lot of work this summer," he said. "Hopefully next year I'm going to run a real-deal company and have some guys with me."

He's the first to admit school wasn't always his thing.

"I was never really an academic guy, and then I come here and it's a big reality check," Compton said. "My parents never did college."

He's doing all right, he says, though dealing with a concussion this semester put him in a hole he's still climbing out of. Professors have been supportive when he reaches out, and he draws motivation from teammates who take class seriously.

"When you see them doing it, it's like, why can't I do it?" he said.

When he needs to clear his head, some of those teammates join him in a tree stand. Compton picked up hunting last year, and the trips mean 5 a.m. starts and coffee and donuts in the truck. Sometimes they study while they wait for deer to come out. One morning, two turkeys walked right out, and he had no shot.

"We were just laughing at each other in the tree stands," he said.

His motivation also comes from home. Compton is the oldest of three, and his sister McKenna has Down syndrome. He says growing up with her put pressure on him early, and it's a push in everything he does.

"I know at the end of the day, I'm going to have to support her one day," he said. "She's always there with a big smile on her face. She comes up, gives me a hug, whether I'm sweaty or not."

When McKenna comes to games, he gives her a jersey or a T-shirt to wear. His parents have been supportive, and when he got frustrated, their answer was simple: you signed up for this, so you're going to do it. His uncle, Marc DeFrancesco, a former heavyweight at Rider, coached him in high school and was excited to hear he'd play both.

Compton isn't a starter yet, and he says so. The offensive line has been strong, and he knows the saying about not fixing what isn't broken. But he's patient, and he's not shy about where he thinks this goes.

"I wish I started a little sooner," he said. "I think my ceiling is very high. Whether you disagree with me or not, I'm going to prove my ceiling's high."

His goals are big. He wants to squat 700 pounds, a mark that would top the Cornell record of 685. He hit 650 in the spring and thinks it's doable by the end of the year. And he wants to be an impact player on the field as a senior.

"I'm sure there's going to be a day where I get my number called and I have to step out there and perform," he said.

He has this season and next, and no time to waste.

"Whether I'm a starter or I'm not a starter, at least I can look back and say, 'Hey, I did everything I could,'" Compton said.

It started as a passing joke from a football coach. Aiden Compton called the bluff, and he's still going all in.