One of the 2026 inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame was Adam Vinatieri. His well-deserved entry followed a 24-year career in the National Football League kicking with the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts, including 4 Super Bowl championships and numerous clutch game-winning kicks through the uprights.

His rise to fame was built on hard work and a steady foot and of those key games were many that helped the Patriots win their first Super Bowl. As a fan of the Patriots and someone who saw many of those games in person, I have many memories of who some call the GOAT – or greatest of all time – of kickers. Reflecting on his playing career, which one, though, is my favorite?

Interestingly my favorite memory of number 4 is not from any game; it’s from meeting him in a supermarket parking lot.

It was a fall day in the late 1990’s (my recollection of the actual date is a little fuzzy almost 30 years later, but the details of the event are surprisingly vivid!) and I was driving home from my consulting assignment in downtown Boston listening to WBCN, the rock station that was the radio home for all Patriots games. The DJ came on to say that there was an event at the recently-opened Stop & Shop supermarket in the Allston neighborhood of Boston, just as I was passing by it on the Mass Pike. At the event there were to be free hot dogs, an appearance by New England Patriots cheerleaders as well as the team’s kicker Adam Vinatieri. Hearing about the latter, I made the complicated trek from where I was heading on I-90 to Allston. Forget the free eats and cheerleaders, I wanted to meet Adam.

When I got to the store, there was a giant mob at the side parking lot. Ugh, I clearly was not alone in wanting to meet the placekicker. Or so I thought. As I approached the large crowd, however, I saw they were in front of the tent queuing for the hot dogs. Phew! I looked beyond this tent and saw another large crowd. As I approached it, another tent was for the cheerleaders, and they were signing mini posters featuring their entire squad. I thought it would be nice to get one for my friend Clint’s young daughter; he and I have been tailgating for Pats games for years and we started a fan Web site GoPats.com a few years earlier. The cheerleaders gladly signed a poster for her, but when I asked for one for myself, I was sternly told only one per person. Whatever.

As I left that tent I saw another, much smaller, next to it with a couple of people under it, one sitting at a table, with only a few people around. I was surprised, as that was where Vinatieri was. Why nobody else was flocking to see him was beyond me, but it gave me an easy opportunity to meet him. When I got there I shook his hand, exchanged pleasantries and made some small talk about the Pats season was going. I recall they were coming off of a loss and I didn’t want to piss him off. Of course, for anyone who knows me and my relationship with sports, small talk is about all I am good at – I have never been someone who remembered every play of the game or had any idea what they should do next, but I digress. He was very pleasant and we had a nice short chat. I then opened my wallet and asked him to sign a GoPats.com business card that Clint and I had printed up to get some traffic to our little fan Web site; remember it was the 90’s, promoting the Web in print was something you would do!

Pictured above is that card, which I have held onto all these years, along with a few other autographed and non-autographed business cards from notable people. For years, starting as a kid, I actually collected business cards, similarly how people collect baseball or other trading cards. Those are long gone now but I still have a few including this one.

So why would a fan of a team pick a moment like this as their favorite for an athlete, and not like the multiple Super Bowl wins or that kick he made in the infamous Snow Bowl game at old Foxboro Stadium that I was at? Simple - it’s personal. Sports, or anything for that matter, can mean different things to different people. It’s not that the other events aren’t important, rather this has unique meaning to me. Where the date may have blurred, the experience did not. Congrats to you Adam, a class act on and off the field, and I can vouch for both.

This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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