Reggie Wells and Steve Breaston shouldn't be here, starting for the Arizona Cardinals in the NFC Championship game Sunday.

Wells, Arizona's left guard from South Park High School, was deemed too small. The big-time college suitors never came calling.

He ended up at Division II Clarion and molded himself -- by gaining 50 pounds of muscle -- into the Cardinals' sixth-round draft pick in 2003.

Now, consider this: The high school player whom the Division I colleges wouldn't consider will start his 75th NFL game Sunday.

"It was all part of my journey," he said. "It was never easy, but I think I've proven what you can achieve if you work at it."

Breaston is another story -- and it goes deeper than football. The skinny receiver/punt returner from North Braddock with the thunderbolt speedburst shouldn't be here, either.

His mother, Charlene Breaston, explained what happened after she had a tubal ligation in 1980: "Three years and seven weeks later, I found out I was pregnant," she said in the living room of the family's home, her husband Mike sitting on a recliner, shrugging his shoulders, still looking disbelieved more than two decades later. "I already had three boys and was finished [having children]. But, when I found out I was pregnant it was a shock at first, but turned into a blessing."

He starred at Woodland Hills and Michigan, and this year, his second in the NFL, has pulled in 77 passes for 1,006 yards.

Speedy receivers normally don't have much in common with 308-pound, manhandling interior linemen, but more than just being WPIAL products, Breaston and Wells share knowing what it is like to have rock-solid mothers who nurtured them and tremendous male role models.

Wells' father, also named Reggie, is a state trooper. It wasn't uncommon for the elder Reggie to spend all night on the job, catch a quick nap, then head to the gym with his sons, Reggie and Ryan, who played basketball at Clarion.

"Ultimately, he's the man who molded me into the competitor I am," the younger Reggie said. "My father worked the graveyard shift, got up early and sacrificed for us. There isn't another father who has done as much as he has. To say he's unselfish isn't giving my father enough credit."

The Breastons also know how older males can shape a successful young man. Each day, Steve saw his father rise early and head to his job in the storeroom at UPMC Braddock to provide for the family, so that before Steve, all three older brothers -- Brian Stevenson, David Graves and Michael Breaston, Jr. -- could go on to college and earn degrees.

So here they are, these two Cardinals who were shaped by Western Pennsylvania, with eastern Pennsylvania's team -- the Philadelphia Eagles -- standing between them and Super Bowl XLIII.

"Anyone in this league who says they haven't dreamt about what it would be like to play in the Super Bowl isn't much of a competitor," Wells said. "I'm trying to block all the emotion out, but I know I'll be thinking that if we win, this year will end in Tampa."

Which could provide a complex situation for the Breastons and Wells. One can deduce, without a map, that South Park and North Braddock are located in the heart of Steelers Country.

That said, if the Steelers defeat Baltimore, and Arizona knocks off the Eagles, it would force a match-up between these two Pittsburgh kids and their hometown team in Tampa, Fla., in two weeks.

"There will be mixed emotions if that happens," Charlene Breaston said. "People know Steve around here and, in their heart, I think they want him to be successful. But this is the Steelers, and I know how loyal people are to them.

"Who would I root for? That's easy, the Cardinals. Because that's my baby and that's where the paycheck is coming from."

For Diane Wells, Reggie's mother, allegiances won't be as torn.

"When the Arizona Cardinals drafted my son, they drafted his whole family," she said.

This weekend, Mike Breaston can't get the time off from work, so Sunday he's going to have to settle for watching his baby boy on the big screen in the living room.

Charlene Breaston, though, was able to take a few days off from her job and will be at the NFC Championship game Sunday in Phoenix with one of her sons.

The Wellses -- Diana and the elder Reggie -- will be there, too.

"I'll be nervous and excited for everyone," Charlene Breaston said. "They have been the underdogs all year. People didn't think the Cardinals would be here right now."

But when has that ever stopped Reggie Wells and Steve Breaston before?