CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Drake Maye survived the snow and led the New England Patriots to his first Super Bowl as an NFL player on Sunday, giving the state of North Carolina and the Charlotte area something to cheer about.

The funny part: It won’t be the first Super Bowl Maye has attended, nor even the first one he’s been part of in Santa Clara, Calif., when he and his teammates take on the Seattle Seahawks in the 60th Super Bowl on Feb. 8.

Ten years ago, Drake Maye was a 13-year-old middle schooler stuck in the shadow of his three older brothers, all of whom were standout college or high school athletes at the time. Having been raised only about 15 miles from Bank of America Stadium, all of the Maye brothers were big Carolina Panthers fans, too.

So when Carolina made it to Super Bowl 50 a decade ago, father Mark and son Drake decided to go. This was even though the game was in California and they didn’t have tickets yet, according to Jim Nantz of CBS Sports, who told this story at the end of the telecast of Sunday’s AFC Championship game.

The Mayes ended up getting tickets and watched in Santa Clara as the Panthers got upset, 24-10, by Denver in Super Bowl 50.

Ten years later, Drake Maye is headed back to that very same stadium after scoring New England’s only touchdown Sunday in a 10-7 defensive slugfest over Denver. This time, though, he’s a 23-year-old star NFL quarterback whose local roots are as thick as an oak tree: he played at Hough High in Cornelius, then Myers Park in Charlotte and then college at UNC, where he started in 2022 and 2023.

And you can bet the Maye family seats are going to be a lot better when the Patriots play Seattle (and former Panthers quarterback Sam Darnold, who played a terrific game Sunday in a 31-27 NFC Championship game win over the Los Angeles Rams). There will probably be a few camera cutaways to the Mayes’ box, too. It doesn’t hurt that Maye’s wife, Ann Michael Maye, is also from the Charlotte area and has become a social media star in her own right, primarily due to the wholesome baking videos she likes to post.

Maye still remembers his days as a Panthers fan, as evidenced by his homage to Cam Newton in New England’s 42-13 blowout win over Carolina on Sept. 28 in Massachusetts.

In that game, Maye scored a rushing TD and then briefly performed Newton’s Superman celebration. He told reporters afterward: “I don’t show much emotion out there. Probably need to show more ... It’s a fun-loving position. I think he (Newton) played the position in a different way than a lot of people do, and the guys around him rallied around him ...He was my favorite player growing up. So, pretty cool.”

It was pretty cool. Maye’s childhood dream didn’t quite work out — he didn’t end up getting to quarterback the Panthers as a pro — but New England drafted him No. 3 overall in the 2024 NFL draft. By then Carolina had already invested major QB capital in Bryce Young, who they made the No. 1 overall pick of the 2023 draft.

But Maye has been a big part of a remarkable turnaround for New England. The Patriots went 4-13 in Maye’s rookie season. This year they are 17-3 (including their three playoff victories) and just one win away from their first Super Bowl championship of the post-Tom Brady-Bill Belichick era.

Maye hasn’t changed his personality up north. His aw-shucks, team-first demeanor has grown on Patriots fans, though, as he has led them to one win after another in his second season.

On Sunday, Maye played in short sleeves, despite a second half that was played inside a snow globe, so much so that the yard lines were mostly obliterated. He threw for a paltry 86 yards on the day and was sacked five times. By the end of the game, New England wasn’t even trying to throw the ball at all, due to the snowy and windy conditions. Maye’s lone touchdown came on a 6-yard quarterback draw.

But on third-and-5, with 1:57 left and clinging to a 10-7 lead, Maye decided to get the first down himself on a naked bootleg run to win the game. Many of his teammates didn’t know he was keeping the ball, but he did — rolling left, outrunning a Denver linebacker and getting past the sticks with two yards to spare, sending New England to the Super Bowl.

Now it is Drake’s turn to grab the headlines for one of Charlotte’s most well-known sports families. Father Mark Maye was a three-sport star in high school, started at QB at UNC and might have had an NFL career but for a serious shoulder injury. Mother Aimee Maye was a high school basketball standout at West Charlotte.

As for the kids: Luke was a basketball star at UNC who won a national championship with the Tar Heels in 2017 and made one of the biggest shots in school history (he now plays overseas, in Japan).

Cole was a college baseball pitcher who was part of a national title team at Florida. Beau was a high school basketball star and now is one of the youngest basketball coaches in the state at his alma mater, Hough, in Cornelius (that’s where Drake played his freshman year of football, before transferring to Myers Park).

One question many ask regarding Maye: Why weren’t the Tar Heels better the two years he started at quarterback?

Carolina was a modest 17-10 in Maye’s two seasons under Mack Brown (2022 and 2023). I would blame that mostly on the team, coaching staff and resources around Maye, though. When you’ve got a top-5 NFL overall pick playing QB, you should do better than two straight five-loss seasons.

In any event, Maye is winning big now at age 23, and the spotlight is about to become more intense than it ever has before. When the Patriots picked him, I was in Detroit for the NFL draft. He said then of New England: “They expect to win, and that’s what I do.”

Expect Maye to do what he always does over the next two weeks: talk about team, deflect praise and generally act like the well-mannered, extremely talented young man that he is. And then he’ll just go try to win another game.

Once, Maye idolized Cam Newton.

If he wins the Super Bowl, though, Maye will have done something that Newton never could.

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