BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- "One split second can change everything."
Vinny Curry has made it to Super Bowl LII, realizing a childhood dream of playing for his favorite team -- the Philadelphia Eagles -- on the biggest stage in American sports. But he can't help but think back to all the close calls that might have kept him from getting here.
He can't help but wonder, as he sits in a mall a few miles away from the site of the game, how a few different choices along the way might have kept him from getting here entirely. And he knows others won't be as lucky.
"It's hard to grow up in Neptune/Asbury Park, where there's so much temptation out there and it's easy to get lost in the sauce," the Eagles defensive tackle said on Wednesday afternoon. "Girls. Money. Drugs. Gangs. It can be hard to stay on the right path.
"I just knew what I wanted to do, and I thank God every day for allowing me to skip over all that. There were so many close calls. One mistake can change everything. But it didn't."
Curry wants to win this Super Bowl for a lot of reasons. He wants it for him and his teammates, of course, because like most of the Eagles he believes there was something special about this group of players from the start of training camp this summer.
He wants it for the city of Philadelphia, because as someone who grew up rooting for this franchise before he became its second round draft pick in 2012, he understands how much suffering the sports fans in his adopted city have endured over the years.
But he also wants to bring it back to Neptune. Curry knows that flashing a Super Bowl ring around the Jersey Shore community where he grew up -- and where many of his friends and relatives still live today -- could help him make an impact with the next group of teenagers.
He still runs a camp in town. He still gets back often enough to know that many of the problems that he encountered growing up haven't improved.
"Coming out of high school, I wasn't the highest recruited guy because I didn't have good grades," Curry said. "Nobody ever told us, like, 'To be the guy you've got to have good grades.' You're just thinking, 'I'm the best player on the team and colleges are going to come knocking.' The next thing you know, you're a senior and you're like, 'Where are these colleges at?'"
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Curry went to Harmony Prep School in Cincinnati to pull up his grades, then landed at Marshall in West Virginia. His mother, Linda "Cissy" Jackson, died during his senior season, and Curry honored her memory with 3 1/2 sacks and nine tackles the day after her funeral in a victory over Rice.
"I'm still dealing with it," Curry said. "Especially at times like this, when everybody's parents are coming up to watch them in the Super Bowl, and it's like damn, I wish my mom could see me.
"This week has been hard. This is a lifelong dream, to be playing for the Philadelphia Eagles and to be playing in the Super Bowl. There is only one more box on the check list, and that's to win the Super Bowl. It would be cool if I could share this with my mom."
He'll share it with plenty of others instead. Curry has won over people at every stop in his journey. In Marshall, a local columnist wrote this week that "he hopes he plants Tom Brady on his backside two or three times" -- not surprising given that Curry still wears No. 75 as a remembrance of the 75 lives lost from the Thundering Herd's football program in a 1970 plane crash.
He is popular in Philadelphia, too, and plenty of that has to do with his impact on the field. The pass-rushing specialist signed a five-year, $47-million contract in 2016, and in his first season as a starter, he has a pivotal role in a defense that has allowed just 33 points in its last four games.
If the Eagles pull off this upset, it is likely that their defense will have rattled five-time Super Bowl winning quarterback Tom Brady. And that means Curry, whose three sacks this season don't begin to illustrate the impact he's had up front on this team, will have a huge role.
"It's just amazing that a kid from Neptune, N.J., could beat the odds to be here with a great group of guys that I care about," Curry said. "We have an opportunity to make history."
Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevePoliti. Find NJ.com on Facebook.