Baldwin is hoping to repair his reputation next week at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, where he not only can showcase his skills but also confront character questions a team might have.

“I know I’m not that way,” Baldwin said by phone from Phoenix on Thursday night. “The only thing I can control right now is getting better, working harder and proving it to people who think that way. I’m definitely looking forward to the interview process and answering those questions.”

Baldwin doesn’t just dream about playing pro football, but he documents those dreams. He sleeps with a notepad under his pillow “in case I wake up in the middle of the night and have ideas for my workouts.” Those workouts made an immediate impression on Brett Fischer, director of Fischer Sports in Phoenix, where Baldwin is training for the NFL combine.

“I heard those same things coming in, but it hasn’t been true,” Fischer said. “He hasn’t shown that to me at all. From Day One, he’s the one chasing me down to do extra work — every day — and that’s what I like about this kid. People who want a great receiver, they’d be crazy to pass up this kid. He’s a specimen. I’ve worked with some of the best guys in the NFL — Larry Fitzgerald, Roddy White, Vincent Jackson, Anquan Boldin and Brandon Marshall — and this kid stacks up with them pound for pound.

“He’s going to put together a great combine.”

He’s been training at Rehab Plus and Fischer Sports in Phoenix, focusing on mostly strength and range of motion exercises. But the 23-year-old Baxter just recently started running again and is on track to return to football soon enough to finally show NFL teams what he can do.

“Last season I was maybe 20 percent (in her shoulder). That’s how bad I was,” Castrale said. “My shoulder was literally just hanging on. Right now Brett (Fischer of Fischer Sports physical therapy clinic in Phoenix) figures I’m about 83 percent. I laughed. Eighty percent was safe to start practicing. Eight-five percent is you don’t have really much pain at all, you are pretty strong. We are gaining on it.”

Fischer and his staff in Phoenix were in charge of Castrale’s rehabilitation, with the Castrales spending weekdays in Phoenix for four months and returning to their Palm Desert home only on weekends. While Castrale says she wouldn’t be ready to play golf now without the work of Fischer and his staff, the rehabilitation left her “feeling like I had been hit by a bus.”

“My whole goal those four months was not to tell Brett and his staff that it was too much,” Castrale said. “There were times that I wanted to cry or I thought I was going to throw up, but I kept telling myself this is going to make me stronger in the end.”