PROVIDENCE — The dream, one that just a few years ago was strictly fantasy, is now in sight. Zak DeOssie can’t wait much longer.

Football runs through DeOssie’s veins. As a 10-year-old, he bopped around Patriots training camp at Bryant College while his father, Steve, worked on his long-snapping skills. As a teenager, he returned to Bryant and threw passes alongside Drew Bledsoe and Tom Brady as a Patriot ball boy.

When he left Phillips Andover Academy and enrolled at Brown four years ago, DeOssie dreamed of throwing TD passes against Harvard and Yale. A life as an NFL linebacker wasn’t on anyone’s radar.

“We watched him as a quarterback and he played a little bit of free safety,” said Brown coach Phil Estes. “When he got here, I think he played one practice at safety. We knew he’d grow, looking at his dad. And the hits he made! He just had great instincts.”

That move ended up changing DeOssie’s football life. This weekend, hopefully Saturday but surely by late Sunday, the 22-year-old will hear his name called during the NFL’s annual college draft. Thanks to that innate ability to hit like a truck and still run like a safety, the 6-foot-4, 250-pounder is likely to become the highest drafted Brown football player in more than 25 years.

“It’s a dream come true and it’s almost here,” DeOssie said earlier this week. “I just want a chance to make a team come training camp. I don’t care where it is or when. I never banked on it, but it’s a dream come true and I couldn’t be happier.”

DeOssie says he didn’t start seeing the NFL as a realistic possibility until scouts came through Brown after his junior season and put him through a few drills. By that point, the entire Ivy League knew who No. 38 was. He had just anchored a defense that helped deliver the Bears’ first-ever outright Ivy title to College Hill, and his bone-jarring hits left painful memories in the minds of opposing running backs and quarterbacks.

Brown wasn’t as successful (3-7) last fall but DeOssie continued to terrorize offenses, averaging 11.4 tackles per game (eighth in the nation in that category) and earning Associated Press Third Team All-American honors for the second straight season. When the season wrapped up in late-November, DeOssie’s preparation for the pros shifted into overdrive. He began working with Mike Boyle, a personal trainer from Boston who became famous in football circles in 1995 when he helped Boston College’s Mike Mamula display eye-popping workouts at the NFL’s Scouting Combine. Thanks to that showing, Mamula rose from a middle-round pick to the No. 7 selection by the Philadelphia Eagles.

In January, DeOssie impressed scouts at the East-West Shrine Game in Houston, making eight tackles as an outside linebacker and on special teams. In late February, DeOssie became the first Brown player (and only Ivy player this season) ever invited to the combine in Indianapolis. After working with Boyle four days a week for nearly three months, he was ready.

“Being a small school guy, if you get invited to the combine that’s huge,” he said. “But you can’t go in there and perform badly. The odds are against you already. You don’t have room for error. “The only thing I thought about going into it wasn’t my level of play or who’s going to do what. The only thing I had control over was myself and performing well. I knew what I was capable of and I knew I was prepared.”

DeOssie was a possible late-round pick before the combine but performed well enough to be mentioned among the top linebackers in the country. He ran a 4.58 40-yard dash, the eighth fastest time of the 34 linebackers present. He also bench-pressed a 225-pound barbell 26 times, the fifth best showing, and performed well in shuttle runs, vertical leaps and a broad jump.

“I want to think there was some doubt before (the combine),” he said. “You know, ‘he’s an Ivy leaguer and he’s fast among his peers, but is this guy the real deal?’ I went there and moved around well and carried my weight as one of the biggest linebackers there. I turned some heads and kept them there.”

The pros see DeOssie as a viable option at either middle or outside linebacker, depending on their defensive format. He visited the New York Giants last week and fielded follow-up visits from coaches and scouts from New England, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Tampa Bay.

DeOssie’s connections with the Patriots run deep. Not only did Bill Belichick coach DeOssie’s father with the Giants and in Foxboro, but Zak DeOssie and Belichick’s daughter, Amanda, are close friends and former prep school classmates.

“I think it could happen, sure,” DeOssie said of the chance to land with the Pats. “They do run a 3-4 defense, and know what I’m about. There is a connection, but I don’t think that’ll hold any sway. I think they’ll consider me.”

Brown’s Estes says he’s spoken with numerous scouts about a player he calls “the best we’ve had here at Brown.”

Instead of talking about what they can see on film, Estes raves about DeOssie’s intangibles.

“We have a rule where you can walk across a parking lot to practice but then you must run onto the field,” said Estes. “Zak would leave the locker room in a full sprint, whooping and yelling. He just loves to play. He loves to compete. In four years, he never lost a sprint. If someone was sneaking up on him, he’d run the last few yards backwards just to prove his point.”

How DeOssie will spend draft weekend speaks to his character. On Saturday, he’ll be at Brown’s spring football game and then enjoy dinner with friends. If his name isn’t called in the first three rounds, he’ll wake up Sunday and try to relax with family in Worcester. Next month he’ll graduate from Brown with a degree in public & private organization policy

“I wouldn’t miss the spring game. These guys are my best friends,” DeOssie said. “No matter where you go to school, no student-athlete can bank on [becoming a pro football player]. Every kid has a dream. But it’s so rare. Everything has to go the right way. I’m happy I took this road.”

kmcnamar@projo.com