If you like local-boy-does-good stories, you'll love Josh Gattis.

Gattis, a Durham native, a product of Northern High School in the Bull City, and a recent graduate of Wake Forest, currently is preparing for life as a professional football player. He'll play Saturday (3 p.m., NFL Network) in the Senior Bowl, an invitation-only college all-star game based in Mobile, Ala., then continue intense workouts leading up to the NFL combine in February and the NFL draft in April.

A three-year starter at safety for Wake Forest, Gattis earned second-team All-ACC honors in 2005, then first-team recognition in 2006, as the Demon Deacons captured the conference championship for the first time since 1970. Wake defensive coordinator Dean Hood has called Gattis "the most mentally sharp kid I've ever coached," and school officials rave about him as an outstanding representative of the university on and off the field.

We recently caught up with Gattis after one of his Senior Bowl practices.

DG: First, congratulations on the sound of this: "All-ACC Safety Josh Gattis, Wake Forest, ACC Champion."

Gattis: Well, thanks a lot for that. It was a great accomplishment for us to win the ACC championship this year. It was a goal we had set out in front of us. It felt great to be a part of a magical season for Wake Forest.

DG: Now here you are, moving on to the next chapter of your life. You're at the Senior Bowl this week, and somehow you ended up on the North squad. What, have you been traded already?

Gattis: (Laughs.) Yeah. They told me I fell along the line when they were making up the rosters. North Carolina was one of their borderline states, so they split us up. They said they needed some North safeties, so I came up here to play on the North team. Either way, I'm proud to be here at the Senior Bowl, whether I'm playing for the South or the North. Right now, I'm just happy to be a part of the North team, and I look forward to going out there and winning the game.

DG: One of your good friends from high school, N.C. State cornerback A.J. Davis, is at the Senior Bowl, too. After going to different colleges, were you looking forward to being on the same team again? Have you been able to spend some time with A.J. or other ACC players this week?

Gattis: It's funny with A.J., because we're roommates here. We've been training together down in Orlando, too. Being in the same room with him, but not being on the same team, has been kind of funny. We're the best of friends, and we talk about each other's practice every day. We're able to watch them because they're being televised on the NFL Network. As far as the other ACC guys here, we're all very friendly. There are no differences out there. We're all out here for one reason and one reason only, and that's to impress the (NFL) scouts and the coaches who are here this week. But everyone's always bringing up stories, and congratulating each other on their seasons, and it feels good to be down here in Mobile with everybody.

DG: Give us an update on what happens when the fall semester is over, and now you're preparing for the next chapter of your life. In your case, is it all football, all the time, for a while?

Gattis: Yes. We've been down in Orlando training with coach Tom Shaw, who's a very well-known trainer in the sports industry. He once was the strength trainer for the (New England) Patriots. He has a number of guys down in Orlando, about 30 other athletes, including a handful from here at the Senior Bowl.

I got my degree, and that's the thing I'm most thankful for. I graduated in December with a degree in sociology from Wake Forest, so I accomplished the other goal from when I first set foot on campus at Wake Forest, graduating. I'm happy about that.

Right now, life is just moving fast. This whole process of coming to the Senior Bowl has been amazing. Not only are we practicing, but our nights are full with interviews with (NFL) teams and coaches and general managers. This whole week is similar to a job audition. You come in here, and you're auditioning yourself for a job. You have to keep everything in perspective. You have to be present at all the meetings, and on time for everything, and really just give off a good sense about you. These coaches are thinking about making an investment in you. It's not going to slow down from here on to April, so you gotta just hold onto your seat and go along for the ride.

DG: How does it work in practice leading up to these all-star games? Do the coaches keep everything pretty standard and vanilla, because everyone is coming from a different background?

Gattis: There's so much you can learn in a week. Coming from college, you play similar techniques. I think the biggest difference coming into an all-star game is terminology. Now you have to learn the terminology of the NFL coaches. No longer can you go around and make the same calls you used from your college coaches. You really have to adjust on the run, and learn the proper language of the NFL teams. I don't think it's a hard task. They try not to cram your mind. At first, it seems overwhelming, but once you get out there and get back to throwing those pads on and running around at practice, you start picking things up a lot faster.

DG: Are these NFL teams testing you more mentally or physically right now? Is it more like the NFL combine, where they're trying to measure everything from your biceps to your IQ and it can feel like a meat market at times, or is it more the face-to-face interviews?

Gattis: It's both. The first day is similar to the combine. They come in and they measure your hands, they measure your arms, they take your height and weight. They bring you into this big room, where there's probably 500 or 600 coaches and other personnel, and you go up on stage — with all the lights shining down on you — one at a time. You have to remove all of your clothes except for your shorts or tights. It's exactly what you said, a meat market.

Once you leave there, you have the NFL teams lining up, handing you cards, and telling you what time to meet with them. You pretty much end up with a full schedule. After 6 o'clock, you're meeting with maybe six or seven teams a night, and those meetings can last anywhere from 15-30 minutes. Sometimes you have coaches in those meetings, sometimes you're meeting with a scout, and other times you might meet with a general manager. So you really have to come prepared for those meetings, because you never know the types of questions that will be asked. Sometimes they like to get into your football terminology, and see what kind of football player you are by drawing up plays with you.

DG: Aside from the Senior Bowl experience, how many hours per day do you think you'll be spending in preparation for the NFL combine in February?

Gattis: Wow. I probably — probably, now, this is a guess — it's probably around 14 hours a day. It takes up your whole day, but it's something you have to do, and it's something that's well worth it in the end. You have to dedicate yourself fully to trying to become the best player. In Orlando, we start in the morning at 9, and we get done with the morning session at around 1 or 2. Then we get a two-hour break for lunch. Then we're back working on combine-specific tests and Wonderlic tests. So you usually don't get out of there until about 8 o'clock. From there on, you go back home and prepare yourself for the next day. Maybe you watch some game tape to get a better understanding of what it takes to be a professional football player. Then you get your rest, you wake up, and the next day you do it all over again.

You're not beating your body for 14 hours a day, though. Some days are rough, and some days aren't. They're not going to push you over the limit. Coach Shaw is as skilled as it gets when it comes to preparing people for the draft, so he's never going to over-push your body. I think one of the good things about it is, you start getting all these treatments at these pre-draft camps that you never got in college. We're going to see a chiropractor every week, going to get a massage once or twice a week, so I'm kind of enjoying that part of it. (Laughs.)

DG: Is the Wonderlic test as strange as many guys say it is?

Gattis: The Wonderlic is weird, but what's worse is the personality test. My first day here at the Senior Bowl, we had to take two 200-question (personality) tests, and that's probably the weirdest test you can take. It's asking all kinds of questions. What do you think you are? Who do you think you are? It's crazy. One of the favorite questions I had on the test I took was this: "Would you like to go back to a safe place?" (Laughs.) Well, of course, wouldn't you? A lot of the guys here have been asking, what is this test for? I think it's something they just make you take to burn some time. If they like you as a football player, they're going to like you as a football player. I don't think a personality test is necessarily going to have a direct correlation with where you go in the draft.

DG: When you think of your time back here in the Triangle, growing up in Durham and then as a student and a football player at Northern High School, what are some of the things you took with you that helped you succeed at Wake Forest and will help you as you try to make it in the NFL?

Gattis: Wow. That's a great question. It would be so hard for me to single out any one, individual person without maybe leaving out one person. But I've been around a lot of people who helped me out, either in the Durham community or in my Northern High School or at my church or all throughout my family. There are so many people who have been instrumental to me that I would like to give thanks to, those people who have been there to support me, and those people who have been by my side the whole time, and those people who had my best interests at heart. It's kind of hard (to answer), without sitting down and making a long list, because the list gets long. That's how many people from my past have been passionate about trying to help someone, and in this case trying to help me.

DG: Your coaches and many other people at Wake Forest, along with a lot of folks in the media, have an awful lot of positive things to say about Josh Gattis after your time there. You once told me that kind of stuff is very important to you. Why?

First and foremost, I'm a representative of my family. I've always been raised that way. I try to represent my mom (Joyce), my father (Joe Sr.), my sister (Tiwonda), my brother (Joe Jr.) and my whole family well. I'm never going to go out there and give a wrong image to hurt them. At the same time, to go along with that, I represent Durham. I'm never going to leave Durham. Durham is my city. That's where I've lived since I was born. I'm very proud to be someone who came through Durham in a positive way. I just hope I can continue to be a positive role model for a lot of young kids growing up in the city. I also represent my school, my university. That's part of being an athlete.

Whenever you're put on a totem pole or you have the privilege of reaching out to others or you're a representative of so many different organizations — including your family, your city, your school — you really have to hold yourself accountable for your actions. You really have to think before you act, and always know that people are watching. You really have to make the right decisions at all times. That's something I try to do every day, and that's something I'll take with me to the NFL and for the rest of my life.