Custer’s
Last Band
On June 22, 1876, Lt. Colonel George
Armstrong Custer confidently led his 7th Cavalry, several officers’
wives and assorted hangers-on out of Fort Abraham Lincoln near present-day
Bismarck, North Dakota. With him was the regimental band, a sixteen-piece brass
band mounted on matching white horses and led by Chief Musician Felix Vinatieri.
They played "Boots and Saddles", and then Custer’s favorite, the cheerful tune
of "Garry Owen", which would forever after be associated with the ill-fated 7th
Cavalry and it’s demise.
Custer’s only concern was that the wily
Sioux would escape before he could engage them in battle, but his spirits were
high, and the entourage took on the air of a summer pleasure outing. Hunting and
scouting parties detached themselves occasionally to canter across the prairie.
When the party reached the confluence of
the Powder and Yellowstone, General Terry’s orders were explicit: the band was
to turn back. Custer, taking one bugler and the handsome white horses with him,
rode into an ambush. The band arrived back at the fort - by steamboat - in time
for the frontier Fourth of July celebration.
Thus, the Patriots won the Super Bowl in
2002 and 2004.
The SUPER BOWL??
The place kicker for the New England
Patriots football team is a young man named Adam Vinatieri, the
great-great-grandson of Felix. Adam’s talented toe not only drilled the
game-winning field goal as time expired in the Big Game, but he kicked five
game-winning field goals during the 2001 season to get them there, including
three in overtime.
According to Patriots' statistics,
Vinatieri is the most reliable field goal kicker in franchise history,
connecting on 80% of his kicks. He scored 24 points during the 2001 postseason
and is now the top Patriots scorer in postseason annals with 54 points.
Following Super Bowl XLI in 2007, in which
Adam Vinatieri participated for a record fifth time, he now holds nearly every
Super Bowl record a place kicker can own: most appearances by a place kicker,
most extra points made and attempted with 13, most field gold attempts (10),
most field goals made (7). He is second in all-time Super Bowl scoring (34),
has kicked the fifth-longest field goal in the game's history (48 yards), and in
Super Bowl XXXIX his six points scored was the most by kickers in the big game.
His career totals now stand at 288 of 349 field goal attempts (82.5%) and 405 of
412 extra point attempts (98.3%). Not bad for a kid who couldn’t get drafted
after graduation from South Dakota State University, even though he is the
Jackrabbits’ all-time leading scorer!
Now sports fans....
What if Custer had defied his
superior and taken the band to the Little Big Horn that blazing hot summer day
in 1876?
