Jesse Mahelona's solution to avoiding the frenzy surrounding him was to come home, where the only talk of this weekend's NFL draft is about a party celebrating the event.

"You come home, nobody cares who you are," said Mahelona, from Kailua, Kona. "I don't talk about football here, I'm just hanging out with the boys."

Mahelona, an All-America defensive tackle from Tennessee and a Kealakehe graduate, is one of Hawai'i's top prospects for the NFL draft, which will be held tomorrow and Sunday.

"I feel good, I'm just taking it as it comes," he said. "If someone were to tell me a year ago I would be in the situation I would be in now, I wouldn't believe them."

Mahelona, 6 feet, 1/2 inches, and 305 pounds, bench-pressed 225 pounds 28 times and ran the 40-yard dash in 5.1 seconds in pre-draft workouts.

He has spoken to Cleveland, Atlanta, Carolina, the New York Giants, New York Jets and Oakland.

ESPN.com said Mahelona is "at his best on the move, has great quickness and good speed for his position."

Negatives it listed included lacking ideal height and bulk, and playing with a narrow base. It said he "needs to be on the move in order to be productive at the DT position and must continue to improve his overall technique and awareness."

While undersized for his position, Mahelona said because he is shorter, he is lower to the ground and can gain good leverage. The flip side is he is "easy to get on top of."

But Mahelona isn't letting size deter him. He listened to the advice of a scout, who told him to control what he could, and not to worry about what he couldn't.

Certain teams interested in him have defensive schemes that can benefit from Mahelona's quickness.

"I'm going to play (any position) regardless, for whatever team drafts me," he said.

Mahelona felt one of his biggest strengths isn't found in statistics.

The jovial athlete said he can bring team chemistry, first by leading by example on the field, to earning the respect of teammates and carrying that to the locker room and beyond.

He's been through it before, enrolling at three different colleges. He started out at the University of Hawai'i before transferring to Orange Coast (Calif.) Junior College, where he played two years. He then played for Tennessee for two years.

As a junior for the Volunteers, he had 42 tackles, including 18.5 for loss and five sacks. As a senior, he recorded 35 tackles, eight tackles for loss and two sacks.

ESPN.com, which called him a "fine athlete," said "for the right teams, Mahelona is worth selecting late on the first day or early on the second day of the 2006 draft."

Mahelona isn't buying into the hype.

"All the teams I talked to said (I would go on the) first day, but you run into problems when you start listening to other people," he said. "The draft is so unpredictable, you don't know what can happen. I could leave in the first round, I could leave in the seventh round, but as long as I make a team, I'll be happy."

Before returning to Hawai'i on April 20, he was in meetings with general managers and position coaches and "big-time decision makers" for his prospective teams.

"Before you get into the meeting, they know everything about you, Mahelona said. "It's like an interview.

"Personality is a big thing. They are going to give you $10 million, they want to know what you are going to do with it."

For now, he'll concentrate on the imu being prepared Friday for the party, and hanging out with friends and family and going to the beach in between daily workouts and flag football games.

If he does get drafted this weekend, "that would mean a lot to mean. I still can't believe where I'm at. I take it one day at a time and thank God and my family, and all the people in Hawai'i who have been keeping up with me. That has been the biggest thing for me."

Reach Leila Wai at lwai@honoluluadvertiser.com.