DAVIE, Fla. – His high school did not have a football team, and basketball was initially his sport in college, but Matt Mulligan, after two seasons as a tight end for the University of Maine, is one of the newest members of the Miami Dolphins.

Standing 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighing 258 pounds, Mulligan, a 22-year-old native of West Enfield, began his NFL career two weekends ago at the Dolphins’ training facility, where temperatures hovered in the 80s as rookies in shorts and helmets ran from drill to drill.

“I’m not going to lie to you; it is the hardest I have ever gone through,” Mulligan said. “Competition-wise, it’s good, it’s real competitive, but it’s the conditioning [that is tough]. I’ve never experienced anything like this because of the humidity, but I like it. It’s very enjoyable.”

Mulligan signed a contract with the Dolphins as a free agent after two seasons as the University of Maine’s starting tight end. He has been playing organized football only since 2004, his sophomore year at Husson College.

There was no football team for Mulligan at Penobscot Valley High School in Howland, so he took up basketball, soccer, tennis and track. He was good enough at basketball to play at Husson before trying football and transferring to Maine.

Mulligan’s first week in Florida was hectic. On May 1, he woke up in Orono at 3:30 a.m. for a 5:50 a.m. flight out of Bangor and was in Miami by noon to sign a contract. Practices began the next day, and Mulligan was hoping to look for housing before the Dolphins’ next minicamp, which starts June 6.

That weekend, Mulligan will compete against tight ends Anthony Fasano, Justin Peelle and David Martin for a spot on the team’s final roster. All three are as tall and weigh as much as he does.

“There’s a need for big people in this league,” said Tony Sparano, coach of the Dolphins. “It’s a big players’ league, and we have to have some big people out here.”

Mulligan rarely encountered such large tight ends in the Colonial Athletic Association at Maine, where he cemented a friendship that may have helped the Dolphins find him.

One of his best friends at UM, Black Bears offensive lineman Chris Parcells, is the nephew of Bill Parcells, legendary NFL coach and current vice president of the Dolphins.

Mulligan said that he met Parcells, his new boss, and had a conversation with him during the first day of minicamp.

Mulligan is not only big, but strong. He established himself as a potential NFL tight end by bench-pressing 225 pounds 34 times, more than any other collegiate tight end the league tested. Also demonstrating an impressive vertical leap of more than 35 inches, Mulligan intrigued several NFL teams.

“I had like 10 other teams interested,” Mulligan said. “The Dolphins and I had been talking for two months. They shot me straight the whole time. Even though there were 10 other teams besides the Dolphins, I thought the Dolphins were the most honest with me and I had the best chance to make it down here.”

Only a year ago, Mulligan did not realize that professional football could become his career. Still new to the sport and learning his position, he didn’t target the NFL until a Maine coach intervened and explained to him his opportunity.

“We had [offensive assistant] Phil McGeoghan, who played in the [NFL] for four years,” Mulligan recalled. “He came in and goes, ‘Matt, I’m going to let you know right now, there are a lot of people out there who think you can play in the NFL, and these next eleven games, we’ve got to put in four years of work,’ he goes, ‘so at this point in time, if you want to play in the NFL, you’ve got to work your [butt] off.'”

Mulligan did the work McGeoghan prescribed, and it paid for the ticket that transported him nearly 2,000 miles from home to an unfamiliarly humid practice field an hour north of sprawling Miami.

In moving from the Maine Black Bears to the storied Dolphins, famous for their undefeated season in 1972, Mulligan has already exceeded any of his previous leaps – from football-less PVHS to playing basketball at Husson to starting for Maine’s football team. But making it last will require more hard work.