BEREA, Ohio -- Here's how Browns rookie Scooby Wright spent his New Year's Eve three years ago:

He made five tackles in Arizona's bowl win in Shreveport, Louisiana, flew home to his native Northern California and took a nap before heading to his high school track and running sprints to get a jump on 2014.

Crazy, right? Who knew the linebacker named after a cartoon dog found time to sleep?

Not his high-school coaches, who recall the precocious eighth-grader attending pre-dawn lifts with the varsity football team before his mother squired him to middle school. Not his college coaches, who remember Wright working out on Mondays -- the players' one day off -- in the weight room at 6 a.m.

"Football is an obsession with Scooby," said Cardinal Newman High coach Paul Cronin, who witnessed the late-night New Year's Eve sprints at the track in Santa Rosa.

"I remember meeting him as a young kid and he came into our school as an eighth-grader saying 'I want to be a Division I linebacker.' He had goals, he was focused on from Day 1 when he walked on campus and he worked out like an animal. In my life, I have never seen anyone work as hard as him."

For someone lacking straight-line speed, Wright tries to remain a step ahead of his competition and critics, who are forever nipping at his heels, doubting his ability to conquer the next level.

He was lightly recruited out of high school despite being a two-time, all-state performer. And as he begins his Browns career Friday with rookie minicamp, NFL analysts wonder aloud whether the relentless defender is fast enough to play in space against the game's best athletes.

Two-Star Scoob -- his Twitter handle that reflects his modest recruiting rating -- is now Seventh-Round Scoob. The Browns drafted Wright with the No. 250th overall pick, just three selections ahead of Mr. Irrelevant.

His stock plummeted following an injury-plagued final season at Arizona that limited him to three games, and a poor NFL combine that saw Wright clock a 4.9 in the 40-yard dash. Although universally lauded for his effort, detractors speculate his incredible college stats -- he was credited with 15 sacks and 31 tackles for loss in 2014 -- were a product of the Wildcats' gimmick 3-3-5 defensive alignment.

Some believe his perceived lack of athleticism will catch up to him at the NFL level. Wright doesn't share that opinion.

"I don't think you have 31 tackles for a loss and 15 sacks for being slow on a football field even though it's college," Wright told cleveland.com in a Tuesday night phone interview.

"I played football in the Pac-12, arguably the fastest football conference in all college football, and played against Oregon and Marcus Mariota. I just don't know how people can make that correlation. Almost every single team in the Pac-12 runs a spread offense. I can play in space."

Wright will compete for a roster spot at inside linebacker and needs to impress on special teams if he hopes to stick. He told the Arizona Daily Star on draft day the Browns "got a steal, baby." Asked Tuesday what fans should expect of him, he said:

"Someone who will work to reach his full potential and play with my hair on fire."

A sporting family

Among his prize possessions, Wright counts an autographed Dick Butkus football kept under glass at the family home. The Hall-of-Fame linebacker retired 20 years before Wright was even born, but the youngster admires the legend's tenacity.

His childhood bedroom featured a poster reading: "Quitters Never Win, Winners Never Quit." He might have grown up in a region whose most famous resident was Peanuts creator Charles Schultz -- the Santa Rosa airport bears his name -- but Wright's life seems ripped from the pages of another comic strip, Gil Thorp.

Scooby Wright got an autographed Dick Butkus football when he was 10 years old. (Wright family archive)

"You look up 'throwback player' and you see Scooby," said his father Phil Wright, who gave him the nickname as a baby while watching Scooby-Doo on television. "Cleveland is getting a throwback player."

Wright was raised in a household percolating with competition. His father, a general contractor, was a linebacker for Long Beach State, and he coaches women's softball at Santa Rosa Junior College. His older sisters, Ashley and Alexis, played college softball.

The newest Browns linebacker identifies with Butkus, Zach Thomas, Ray Lewis and Brian Urlacher. His inspiration, however, was his flame-throwing sister Ashley, who earned a scholarship to Illinois.

As a fourth-grader, Wright came home from school and was awed by the dedication of the family's oldest child, one pitched in her backyard and worked with a personal trainer.

"To see the way she went about it, it was all business," Wright said. "She never paid attention to what anybody said she could or could not do and just worked."

Wright competed in track and dabbled in basketball, but football drove him. He liked the physicality of the game and how it created bonds and friendships.

Cronin said Wright arrived at Cardinal Newman as the fourth-best player in his class and evolved into the campus' best athlete by his sophomore season. He played with such a manic intensity, Cronin recalled, the linebacker sometimes drew personal fouls on clean hits because of the violent nature of the collisions.

Off the field, he was a popular student who addressed elders with "No, sir" and "yes, mam." One longtime observer of the Santa Rosa sports scene told cleveland.com: "If Johnny Manziel is on one end of the spectrum, Scooby is on the other."

Santa Rosa and surrounding communities -- Wright grew up in nearby Windsor -- are the northern gateway to Napa Valley. It's not a prep football recruiter's paradise. Wright loved UCLA, his coach said, but the school was not interested in a linebacker who weighed about 195 pounds. Neither were many of the Pac-12 schools.

Arizona offered on the final day of his junior year and he accepted.

"I've dealt with it my whole career from high school to college," said the 6-foot, 239-pound Wright, who features a David and Goliath tattoo on his left arm. "I don't feed off proving people wrong. It's more about me reaching my full potential."

'A big upside'

Former Arizona defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel knows the caricature cynics draw of Wright -- a slow-footed, short-armed liability in pass coverage. He's a college standout who won't get to the edges on Sunday afternoons in time to make plays.

Casteel doesn't worry about 40 times or vertical leaps. Just put some pads on Wright and point him to the field.

"His true ability is when you start playing football," Casteel said. "He studies the game, he's got great instincts and he's got good short-area quickness, which is so important for a linebacker."

After a strong freshman year, Wright's production soared as sophomore. He led the NCAA with 163 tackles and 31 for a loss. He also forced five fumbles to go along with his 15 sacks, earning him the Vince Lombardi Award, presented annually to college football's best defensive lineman or linebacker. (Fellow Browns rookie and former Penn State lineman Carl Nassib was last year's recipient.)

It would be interesting to get Mariota's take on Wright. The Titans quarterback saw his Oregon Ducks upset twice by Arizona before getting revenge in the 2014 Pac-12 Championship. Wright intercepted a Mariota pass (2013) and registered a strip sack (2014) in the two regular-season meetings.

Casteel believes what some analysts are missing is Wright's relative youth, he's only 21, and the low mileage on his body given that he missed most of last season with knee and foot injuries.

"He started for us as a true freshman, basically playing with both eyes closed and got just 110 snaps as a junior," Casteel said. "He's still learning the game and he's tough as nails. I think there's a big upside with Scooby."

Making a splash

If the NFL combine included an event for sprinting out a back door, hopping over a fence and into a swimming pool, Mike Mayock might still be trumpeting Wright's performance.

His emotional response to getting picked in the seventh round was the indelible image of the draft's final day. An ESPN crew was embedded at his family's home and among its humble requests were: "don't jump in the pool while wearing our mic."

"I was so excited that I forgot I had the mic on," said Wright, who was reduced to tears after receiving the call from the Browns. "I had been sitting for so long I just forgot about it."

The family thought the linebacker might go anywhere from the third to fifth round. It did not anticipate such a major drop.

"It was a terrible day," his father said. "There's no way he's a seventh rounder. That chip Scooby carries on his shoulder is now the size of a boulder. It will all be good for the Dawg Pound."

The dad estimates 12 teams called Wright about signing as a free agent before the Browns turned in the card. The defender confirmed to cleveland.com he would have signed with the Cardinals had he gone undrafted.

Wright cannot wait for training camp. He's anxious to prove his worth at linebacker and participate on special teams, which he begged coaches in college to play.

"You would almost have to get in fistfights with Scooby to get him off the field," Casteel said. "We had packages on offense to use him as a blocking back in short yardage."

The linebacker's mentality and aggressive nature might help a Browns defense that's struggled to stop the run. Yet today's NFL is a passing league. Teams threw 57.5 percent of the time last season, according to Pro Football Reference, the highest figure in a decade.

In a game dominated by sub-packages, can Wright stay on the field and keep pace with tight ends and pass-catching backs?

Everybody loves an underdog tale, but Browns fans have seen too many of their defenses reliant on overachievers. They don't want to be fed another Scott Solomon fable.

Ready or not, Cleveland, here comes Scooby Wright -- armed with a work ethic and compete level on loan from the Butkus era. Time will tell if his gritty game and indefatigable effort translate to the NFL.

"All I wanted was an opportunity," he said. "Now, I've got it."