One of Dean’s favorite memories is, well, his first that officially counted. Literally, his first NFL play.

Gearing up to go onto the field at Qualcomm Stadium, big-play threat Percy Harvin was one of many teammates who approached Dean and said something along the lines of ” ‘Hey, rook, what’s up, man? Game day. You made it!’ ” Harvin holds the unique distinction of positively baffling the rook afterward.

All these years later, Dean doesn’t vividly remember Harvin fielding kickoffs in training camp. Dean, however, knew all about Harvin’s unusual return style — the 2009 first-round pick preferred to catch kickoffs with his palms out, like he was snaring a pass, instead of trapping it, palms in, against his body.

“I remember Coach Prief’ (former Special Teams Coordinator Mike Priefer) telling everybody, ‘Don’t catch it like this. He’s the only one allowed to do it.’ “

Harvin was not the Vikings primary kickoff return man in 2011 — Lorenzo Booker ran out 19 compared to Harvin’s 16 — but he averaged a team-best 32.5 yards per return. He scored a 103-yard TD to launch the season.

“I just remember getting in the huddle and him walking up, telling me, ‘Man, watch this,’ and he tells Coach Prief’, ‘I want to return it.’ And then Coach Prief’ looked [at us and said], ‘OK, you heard him.’ Like, whoever the returner was, I forgot who it was. Prief’ was like, ‘All right, you heard him, Percy’s going to return it.’ I’m like, What? That’s crazy. OK. Then Percy looked at me. He’s like, ‘All right, I’m going to meet you in the end zone.’ And he said it so cavalierly, so nonchalant, so I’m like, OK, win one for ‘The Gipper.’ “

“We break the huddle: To the house on three,” Dean reenacted. “One, two, three — to the house!”

Harvin delivered. From three yards deep in the middle of the end zone, he weaved right, slipped a tackler, dashed ahead of Dean at the Vikings 25 and cut across the grain 75 yards to the opposite paint. Dean chased Harvin the whole way and euphorically slapped his shoulder pads. It led to an unforgettable — and hilarious — “Welcome to the NFL” moment that caught the adrenalized rookie’s rush of emotions.

“They kicked it to him, and he didn’t lie. He took it to the house,” Dean said incredulously. “I’m almost hyperventilating. Like, Oh, my God, you told me this. You told me. I don’t understand. You told me that you were going to score. And I’m walking with him to the bench, like, just arm around him, you know, just elated, right? And I’m sitting down with him, we’re talking about it or whatever, and Coach Prief’ is going crazy. He’s like, ‘Larry! Larry!’ Like everybody’s calling ‘LD! LD!’ I’m like, What?! They’re like ‘You’re on kickoff!’ But I went down, and I [assisted] a tackle, so [Priefer] wasn’t too upset with me. But that was one of my moments that I like to tell people about because he called it.”