Brother of Colts’ place-kicker roots for Sunday victory

A Nevada National Guard soldier will have more than a passing interest in Sunday’s NFL playoff game when he turns on the TV to watch the Indianapolis Colts play the New England Patriots with his wife and sons in their Las Vegas home.

Army Maj. Beau Vinatieri will be rooting for his older brother, Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri — the league’s oldest player at 42 — to boost his team into the Super Bowl. The kicker has a chance to wear a fifth Super Bowl ring after winning three of those rings wearing a Patriots uniform.

“I’ll be at home with the family on the couch watching the game,” Beau Vinatieri said Friday in his office at the Guard’s Las Vegas Readiness Center, where he is the personnel officer for the 17th Sustainment Brigade.

He talks a couple of times a week to his brother who is “definitely excited.”

“He has a lot of feelings, and there’s a lot of history with the Patriots. He’s definitely looking forward to the chance of winning this game and going to another Super Bowl,” Beau Vinatieri said.

Even after 19 seasons, with this one the kicker’s best, the family still gets nervous. It comes with the turf of having a brother who is a pro football household name. Adam Vinatieri has NFL records for most postseason field goals, most field goals in Super Bowls and most extra points in Super Bowls.

“It’s definitely special, and we definitely have confidence in Adam,” the younger brother said. “We have a lot of excitement every time he goes and kicks.”

Beau Vinatieri, 35, moved from South Dakota to Las Vegas in 2003 after his wife, Michelle, landed an education job. She’s a fourth-grade teacher at Bunker Elementary School. They have two sons, Jeau, 8, and Keaul, 6.

The Vinatieri family is steeped in military tradition with roots in South Dakota planted by his great-great grandfather, Felix V. Vinatieri, an Italian immigrant and musician who served with Lt. Col. George Custer.

“He was head bandmaster for Custer,” Beau Vinatieri said. “Whenever they would go into battles of course they would leave their band and some of their support back at the fort because they weren’t killers like everyone else.

“The Battle of Little Big Horn happened. Custer and all of his men were killed, and he stayed in the last fort. And that’s the reason why Vinatieris are from South Dakota,” he said.

Beau Vinatieri decided to enter the Army through the ROTC program at Black Hills State University in South Dakota, where he, too, was a kicker.

Encouraged by a friend who wanted to join the military on the buddy system, he pondered a career in the Army.

“I thought about it with my family, of course, and I said, ‘You know what? I will,’ since my whole family — uncles and Dad and my grandpa, everyone was in the military.”

He served a tour with the Nevada National Guard’s 422nd Expeditionary Signal Battalion in Afghanistan, returning in 2012.

“I have a lot of pride wearing my uniform,” he said. “I know some people are afraid of deploying, and some people are afraid of being away from their families. But I look at it as it’s an honor to me to be able to wear the United States uniform and to support my country.”

Adam Vinatieri tried the military, too, but after two weeks at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., decided that wasn’t his calling. Instead, he took a scholarship offer at South Dakota State University, which launched his career in the NFL.

A photo of a helmeted Adam Vinatieri, wearing his No. 4 blue jersey, graces the cover of the Colts’ 2012 Military Appreciation Game booklet. A feature story gives his perspective on military service and the game of football.

“People sometimes say, ‘You guys are such heroes. ... You’re going to battle this Sunday,’ ” Adam Vinatieri says. “There may be injuries, but we’re not in it with guns, shooting and having the potential of lives lost. There is risk in what we do but it is not the same thing, not even close.”

The Vinatieri siblings — oldest brother, Chad, 44, Adam, Beau and sister Christine, 36 — all played soccer. “My dad tells everyone she was the best kicker in the family,” Beau said of his sister.

Adam Vinatieri got his start as a kicker in Pop Warner football. The coach asked the boys if any of them knew how to kick. “My brother said, ‘Well, I play soccer. I could probably kick a football.’ Since then he’s always been a kicker,” the Army major recalled.

Perhaps the most memorable of all his feats was making two field goals for the Patriots to beat the Oakland Raiders in a blizzard as the Patriots came from behind to win a Jan. 19, 2002, playoff game.

After a controversial call that reversed a fumble to an incomplete pass as Patriots quarterback Tom Brady released the ball, Adam Vinatieri tied the game with a 45-yard field goal. He then made a 23-yarder in overtime to win the game.

“He said definitely out of all the kicks he’s ever had, it was his best kick of his career,” Beau Vinatieri said.

The kicker’s brother predicts Sunday’s score will be 21-17 with the Colts on top. If so, he most likely will kick some points in Super Bowl XLIX on Feb. 1 at Arizona’s University of Phoenix Stadium.

Beau Vinatieri said his brother isn’t thinking about retirement. “Like he always said, as long as he can serve a purpose and he’s not hurting his team, he wants to keep kicking.”

Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308. Find him on Twitter: @KeithRogers2.