NORTH CAROLINA STATE ATHLETICS

Ikem "Ickey" Ekwonu, the Carolina Panthers' first-round pick, credited wrestling at Providence Day School with helping excel at football. Ekwonu is expected to slot at left tackle with the Panthers, a position of need since 2016 when Michael Oher retired.

Wrestling helped Ikem “Ickey” Ekwonu become a better football player.

Ekwonu, the Carolina Panthers’ first-round pick, parlayed the tactics and mental toughness learned as a wrestler at Providence Day that helped prepare him for football. At North Carolina State, the 6-foot-4, 310-pound Ekwonu was an All-America tackle whose physicality earned him a rating as one of the draft’s top offensive linemen.

“It helped me a lot – level changes, being able to move my body around and throw my body around and keep leverage,” he said, “and having sprawl and react quickly when guys are shooting,” a wrestling term for an opponent’s a surprise maneuver.

“Hand fighting, too; having to fight for position and all that sort of stuff. It’s also like a mindset thing too, because on the wrestling match, it’s you and your opponent and it's just one on one. You got to do what you have to do. I feel like it’s one of the toughest sports mentally and physically so, a lot of my football game really comes you know, I can attribute that to wrestling.”

That Ekwonu was available with the sixth pick was an unexpected windfall for Carolina, who were looking to address major needs at tackle and quarterback through the draft.

Panthers general manager Scott Fitterer said they went through 50 scenarios in which they’d be able to draft one of the top three offensive linemen – Ekwonu, Alabama's Evan Neal and Mississippi State's Charles Cross – and in only one of them was Ekwonu available.

“All of them had great traits and we would have been happy with any of them,” Fitterer said. “What we really like about Ickey is he is a tone setter. He has the intelligence and the physical style of play. He brings all the intangibles that we want as well as the physical attributes.”

Ekwonu is projected as a left tackle, an unsettled position for Carolina since Michael Oher retired in 2016 a year after the Panthers advanced to the Super Bowl, but said he’d move to another position if needed.

“Wherever … we can win the most games,” he said.

Ekwonu is living out his football dream in the city where he grew up, but he was also impressed by how his life is about to change. It all sank in on draft day, when first-round picks are at the center of the sport for a day.

“Honestly, it was kind of crazy,” he said. “[It] was probably the first time I really felt like a little bit of nervousness. I was pretty much excited and so like this morning I was like ‘dang, my whole is about to change.’ I visited with the commissioner [Roger Goodell] and [retired Carolina linebacker] Thomas Davis is there, and [NFL vice president of football operations] Troy Vincent was there and kind of instilled some wisdom into us in some of those conversations. And then really after that, I just got ready.”

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