Several hours after the Patriots selected Dominique Easley in the first round of the NFL draft May 8, the hulking defensive tackle set his mind to accomplish just one thing. He returned the next day to Curtis High in Staten Island, N.Y., where his football career began, and asked administrators for the chance to share some time with the student body.

A menacing presence once described by his University of Florida defensive coordinator as someone who plays to physically hurt his opponents, Easley showed the fiercely loyal side of his character. So there he was, a few minutes before 10 on a Friday morning, strolling through the door and helping to coordinate an assembly with 600 students in Curtis’ packed auditorium.

Easley passionately pleaded for the kids to stay in school, use every resource at their disposal, surround themselves with those who root for their success and befriend authority figures. It was the same way Easley lived as he became the No. 2 football recruit in the country while keeping up a stellar transcript and reputation, which all made him a low-maintenance prospect.

He may have gotten the crowd a little misty that morning, too, when he said the goal wasn’t the NFL as much as it was to be successful enough to support his mother.

“I was proud. I was very happy,” Easley’s mother, Carine, said after hearing about the speech. “It brought tears to my eyes when they told me that.”

Support system

Carine Easley, who works for United Airlines, understood the root of her son’s message. She always demanded classroom excellence and maintained that playing sports was a privilege. Although his mother and father — David Easley, an Army Reserve staff sergeant who served in Iraq and Afghanistan — got divorced when he was a child, the youngster always heard the same message from his parents and his uncle, Juan Easley.

The support helped turn Easley into the bright, friendly character coveted by the Patriots. From every stage of his life, Easley has supporters who vouch for a jovial guy who lights up the room and faithfully stands by his family, friends and teammates. The Pats did their homework.

Carine was the head of the household, and she trotted Easley around to each of his sporting events, or at least the ones in which he was allowed to participate. Because Easley was, according to his mother, 5-foot-4 and 130 pounds as an 8-year-old, she carried his birth certificate everywhere to quell protesting parents.

The certificate didn’t help Easley on the football field, though, as he was banned from youth leagues due to his massive presence.

“It’s heartbreaking when a child wants to play football, and they keep telling him he’s too big,” Carine said.

Easley bided his time with baseball and basketball until Curtis High football coach Peter Gambardella uncovered the most prized recruit in the history of a program with a solid tradition. Easley’s work ethic spread throughout the locker room, as did his high self-expectations. For instance, if Easley was chop blocked, he would get ticked for allowing himself to be in the position to be taken out of a play.

Easley had become a national sensation by his junior season, when recruiters swarmed as never before in the area. Staten Island has also produced former Pats Steve Gregory (a fellow Curtis alum) and Joe Andruzzi (Tottenville High), but Gambardella said Easley’s rise changed the way major college programs view the New York City borough.

Yet, Easley was never distracted by it.

“When that spring hit,” Gambardella said, “he would go, ‘Coach, this is all nice for me, but I’m not leaving until we have a championship together.’ That really defined who he was. He was more interested in pushing and making the team better.”

The team goals hit an early snag during Easley’s senior season in 2009, though. They were blown out by local rival Fort Hamilton High in Week 2, and Easley was working through some injuries while playing every snap of every game on both sides of the line. Gambardella made the unpopular decision to rest Easley the following week, which led to two weeks of silent treatment, but the star made it pay off in the long run.

Easley returned to score touchdowns in three consecutive games — a strip-sack and interceptions off screen and swing passes — and got revenge by blocking an extra point in a 1-point victory against Fort Hamilton in the Public School Athletic League semifinals. Curtis won the coveted city championship a week later after Easley made a key third-down sack and helped push through the line to give a teammate an alley to block a punt.

Easley has kept a close relationship with Gambardella, too. During a winter break at Florida, Easley returned to Staten Island because his father was up from South Carolina. Easley stopped by Gambardella’s house for a couple hours to spend time with his family. But Easley disappeared just as quickly, hopping back on a plane that day in order to make it back to Florida for two workouts the following day. Gestures like that are why Gambardella’s 6-year-old child demanded a Patriots jersey in time for school Monday morning.

Gaining in Gainesville

The Florida Gators got the same guy. Easley arrived in Gainesville, Fla., in 2010 with fellow blue-chip recruit Sharrif Floyd, a defensive tackle who was the Vikings’ first-round pick in 2013. They were so eager to begin working out that they bought a couple beaters to bike around Gainesville, trekking through hills without any gears. One day, about four miles from home, Easley wrecked the bike whipping around a corner and had to ride home on a crooked wheel while Floyd provided a heckling soundtrack.

“It was the funniest night of my life,” Floyd said. “I made him pedal all the way back.”

They were inseparable off the field (they are godfathers to each other’s sons, Dominique II and Trygg) and forged the SEC’s most dominant interior tandem on it. But Easley’s savage playing style was derailed in the 2011 finale when he tore his left ACL. Still, after rehabbing like a maniac, Easley returned for the 2012 season and played even better, according to all accounts, despite having to spend six days a week getting treatment to gear up for gameday. Floyd knew the drill after tearing his own ACL in high school, and he was shocked to see how quickly Easley regained his explosion.

But it happened again during practice last September, ruining what had been a wildly disruptive three-game stretch against opposing offenses to open his senior season. This time, it was Easley’s right knee, but he was relatively fortunate it was a non-contact injury.

Ivan Candelaria, owner of Raritan Physical Therapy and Radical Athletic Development in Edison, N.J., has been Easley’s rehab guru since high school and knows the dynamics of his client’s body better than anyone. Candelaria set up Easley with renowned Dr. James Andrews for both surgeries, which repaired the ACLs by using grafts from the patellar tendon.

No knee’d to worry

Easley has again progressed well from the October surgery and participated in practice drills last week on a limited basis, according to a source. The Patriots haven’t set a definitive timetable for his offseason rehab, but there’s no doubt Easley will be ready by Week 1.

“He’ll definitely be on the field this season,” Candelaria said. “There’s no reason why he wouldn’t be able to start right away. It depends how they want to bring him along. The Patriots do things the right way.

“He’s functional to the point where if he had to play a football game today, he can. He’s definitely ready to go.”

Since Easley has a proven track record of overcoming a torn ACL, his supporters had no worries about his draft stock. Easley told his mother not to worry because he tested well enough in the offseason to be a Day 1 pick. Floyd said he didn’t even watch the draft because there was no doubt.

Now, the Patriots are getting a tenacious team-first competitor who plays with a harnessed violence that will benefit the entire defense.

Said Florida defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin: “One of the great things about Dominique (is) when he lines up across from someone, it’s the same. He’s trying to physically hurt them. Seriously, that’s the guy’s approach. It’s an amazing thing.”

The Patriots are also adding a potential star — and one who told friends he is overjoyed to learn from veteran five-time Pro Bowler Vince Wilfork. They’ve acquired a joker who will crack up the room by dancing to the music in his own head. Many coaches and teammates will gain a friend for life, and team owner Robert Kraft — by all accounts — is landing a role model who will be a pillar in the community.

That’s Dominique Easley, the first-round pick who values his past as much as his present and future, the pride of Curtis High and the prize of the Patriots.