Donald Brown realized his dream last month when the Indianapolis Colts made him the 27th pick in the NFL draft.

He had reason to celebrate, and did.

“He fell off the wagon,” said his mother, Lisa Brown.

He went to the Windmill, a restaurant on the Jersey shore. He indulged in banned substances.

“Their foot-long hot dogs and cheese fries are great,” Brown said. “I treat myself occasionally, but I very rarely let myself veer off my diet.”

The journey that brought Brown from tiny Atlantic Highlands, N.J., (population 4,631) to the NFL is one of hard work and strict discipline. You might say it brought him out of nowhere.

As a freshman at Red Bank Catholic High School, Brown not only didn’t make the varsity, he failed to make the junior varsity. He played on the freshman team. He progressed to starting cornerback and kick returner as a sophomore, and after that season, coach Frank Edgerly told him his speed wasn’t enough, that he had to get bigger, stronger, better.

Brown counseled with his parents. His father, Donald, general sales manager for a fleet of auto dealerships, assigned “Donnie” some research.

Junior came back with a plan. Senior hired a trainer and a nutritionist. Lisa began hauling Donnie to the gym, J.M. Power Center, five days a week.

No more foot-longs, no more cheese fries.

“My food bill went up. He was constantly eating — chicken, vegetables, yogurt and grapes, fruit, salads, oatmeal,” said Lisa, a paralegal for Monmouth County.

“We became the vitamin store’s best friend,” Donald Sr. said. “He became a health nut.”

Junior got bigger, stronger, better. He ran for more than 1,000 yards while alternating at running back as a junior.

And he took the football and ran with it as a senior: 2,032 yards and 27 touchdowns.

“When he got the ball, it was like a video game,” Edgerly said. “I got really smart as a coach when he became my running back.”

Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Tennessee and Virginia noticed. They offered Brown scholarships. He chose Connecticut. It had an outstanding kinesiology program. Exercise science had become his passion, and being a student was Job 1.

The pattern repeated.

UConn redshirted Brown as a freshman. He spent the season on the scout team impersonating Rutgers’ Ray Rice, West Virginia’s Steve Slaton, Syracuse’s Damien Rhodes and South Florida’s Andre Hall. All of them made the NFL at least briefly, but it was quite a comedown for a 2,000-yard schoolboy.

“You’re on cloud nine leaving high school and then you’re right back at the bottom of the totem pole,” Brown said.

He kept his mouth shut and his head down. He passed on foot-longs and cheese fries. He worked.

Brown alternated at running back as a redshirt freshman and again as a sophomore. He took the football and ran with it as a junior: 2,083 yards and 18 touchdowns. He led the nation in rushing.

“Never missed practice, never missed a rep, never expected anything,” UConn coach Randy Edsall said. "He never wanted to come out of the game. He wanted every carry.

“All our kids had to do was watch him and emulate him.”

The NFL was watching, too. Brown decided to forgo his senior season and the Colts made him the second running back taken in the draft. The first? Georgia’s Knowshon Moreno, 12th to Denver. Moreno is from Bedford, N.J., four miles from Atlantic Highlands. As fifth- and sixth-grade running backs, Brown and Moreno alternated — what else? — with the Atlantic Highlands Tigers, a Pop Warner League team.

With the Colts desperate to improve a running game that averaged an NFL-worst 3.4 yards an attempt, Brown figures to share playing time with incumbent Joseph Addai, the Colts’ 2006 first-round draft choice. Brown is undaunted. He has been there before, and he understands that’s how the Colts do it.

“We lost Dominic Rhodes (to free agency),” Colts president Bill Polian said, “and we’ve replaced him with Donald Brown.”

The Colts have had a single run of more than 40 yards the past four seasons, a 41-yarder by Addai in 2007. Brown (5-10, 210) had at least one run of 30 or more yards in nine of 13 games last season.

Polian described Brown as “scintillating.” He called him a “game-breaker.” Those characterizations might seem incongruent with the 4.51-second time Brown posted in the 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine, but 40 times are fool’s gold.

“We played teams like Don Bosco and St. Peters Prep, nationally ranked teams, and he never got caught from behind,” said Edgerly. “Never.”

It happened twice at UConn. He was run down after a 75-yard rush during a 261-yard game against Buffalo in the 2009 International Bowl, and was also caught once against Virginia.

“He was an All-American track guy,” Brown said of the Virginia defender who caught him. “I’m fast enough to play the game.”

Strong enough, too. Brown’s 600-pound squat lift was one of UConn’s best. His leg drive made him their short-yardage back. He ran through tackles.

UConn’s opponents last season included Hofstra, Temple, Virginia, Baylor, Rutgers and Syracuse. Brown hasn’t done it against the Tennessee Titans, the Jacksonville Jaguars or the New England Patriots.

But he has always met the challenge. He rushed 367 times for a team that threw only 329 passes last season. The eight-man defensive fronts that have confronted the Colts in recent years will be nothing new to him.

Brown knows he has a lot to learn, particularly in pass protection. He’s a willing student.

Bring it on.

Hand him the football. And hold the foot-longs and cheese fries.