Vanderbilt Football's Nick Rinaldi Celebrates The Special Olympics Community, And He Believes Everyone Else Should

NASHVILLE—Sam Fitzgerald unintentionally teases the huddle of Vanderbilt football players on hand when he pulls at the brim of his Nightmare Before Christmas hat and readjusts it, but the anticipation in the room subsides as he removes his hand from it. Fitzgerald doesn’t keep them waiting for long, though.

Four seconds later, Fitzgerald gets the crowd going by pulling his hat off and replacing it with the black Vanderbilt football hat that Vanderbilt linebacker Nick Rinaldi handed to him. Fitzgerald passes off the Nightmare Before Christmas hat to Rinaldi, who holds it up and informs the team that it’s Fitzgerald’s favorite movie–a claim that was met with a few cheers from the crowd.

“But,” Rinaldi says as he nods his head in approval, “Clearly he likes Vandy football more.”

“YEAH,” a few voices in the crowd replied simultaneously.

Rinaldi introduced Fitzgerald to the team just over a minute before his hat switch, but Vanderbilt football had already made up its mind about him.

When Rinaldi made the introduction and Fitzgerald made his grand entrance into Vanderbilt’s post-Friday practice huddle, there was already a team-wide cheer. Rinaldi then told the team that Fitzgerald is a big Vanderbilt football fan and presented him with a signed football by the entire team as well as a Vanderbilt football shirt. Rinaldi partnered with the Special Olympics of Tennessee to make days like this plausible, and he was seeing the fruits of his labor.

Fitzgerald is a local Special Olympics athlete that Rinaldi set up a visit for ahead of Vanderbilt’s Saturday matchup with NC State, but Rinaldi quickly indicated to his teammates that Fitzgerald is more than that.

Rinaldi declares that Fitzgerald is a very important person. He notes that he's a Chick-Fil-A employee—an anecdote that’s met with some oos and aahs in the crowd. Rinaldi also spotlights Fitzgerald working at Thrift Love and his extensive knowledge of books. Fitzgerald also loves basketball and cheeseburgers—“hell yuh, Sam,” a Vanderbilt player says to that in response.

Before Vanderbilt’s Friday practice dismissed, Rinaldi made sure that Fitzgerald was the centerpiece of a team picture. He also set the stage for the weekend by breaking the news that Fitzgerald would be with the team during its pregame Star Walk and encouraging everyone involved to invest in Fitzgerald’s experience.

It’s a similar talk to the one Rinaldi gave the team a week prior when Special Olympics golfer, bocce ball standout and bowler Bradley Brown–who Rinaldi declares is a better bowler than Vanderbilt freshman safety Bradley Brown–stood in front of the team. Rinaldi honored Brown for being the first Special Olympics athlete in Tennessee to be hired full-time to the organization’s staff, conveyed that he won’t support a restaurant that serves Pepsi over Coke products and made sure he was front and center in the team photo alongside Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea.

Like Fitzgerald, Brown took advantage of the moment Rinaldi gave him by taking off his Callaway hat, tossing it over his shoulder onto the turf practice field and replacing it with a Vanderbilt football hat.

“This is my favorite golf hat,” Brown declared while tossing the Callaway hat and picking up the Vanderbilt hat, prompting the huddle to erupt, “But, this will do for today.”

Rinaldi introduced Sam Fitzgerald to Vanderbilt football a week ago. | Special Olympics TN

WHILE RINALDI PULLED Delaware quarterback Nick Minicucci to the ground in the first quarter, a section of local Special Olympics athletes and their families celebrated the guy that gave them a day that they won’t soon forget. Rinaldi worked directly with Vanderbilt’s ticketing office to ensure that he could get the largest allotment of tickets possible.

Rinaldi secured 200 tickets for those associated with the Special Olympics--including Brown--and distributed them to the organization free of charge.

Vanderbilt’s matchup with Delaware was likely the only one that Rinaldi will be able to secure a large allotment of tickets for, but he has a group of seats in the south end zone that are reserved for a Special Olympics athlete and their family at every Vanderbilt home game. Rinaldi’s plan is to fill the seats every week with an athlete like Fitzgerald or Brown after bringing them to Vanderbilt’s Friday practice and having them walk alongside him at Star Walk.

Rinaldi is three games into his partnership with Special Olympics Tennessee and appears moved by the impact it’s had. He’s not the only one.

“We've had some athletes this year who weren't Vanderbilt fans who told me they’re now Vanderbilt football fans because of Nick Rinaldi,” Vanderbilt associate director for communications and football media contact Laura Topp said. “I think he's very aware of the position that he's in and the platform that he has. It’s really important to him to be able to use that for good.”

Topp recalls the light that radiated from Rinaldi’s eyes when he first pitched his idea of what the partnership with the Special Olympics could look like–which initially included ideas like inviting athletes to practice, gifting each athlete with a signed football and Vanderbilt gear and beginning them along to the Star Walk, all of which have become reality–and credits Rinaldi for executing his ideas.

Pinning the bulk of logistical responsibility of the project on Topp would’ve been easy, but she indicates that Rinaldi has been the one to take charge. He’s sent emails. He’s made phone calls. He’s made an effort to choose each athlete he brings in wisely and to make their experience with the program worthwhile.

The consensus among those in Rinaldi’s camp is that he understands Special Olympics athletes and consistently treats them like normal people, a luxury that they often aren’t afforded in an increasingly crude society. Rinaldi has been forming an understanding of and an affinity for the Special Olympics community for longer than he’s been a football player, and he demonstrates it weekly.

It was always important to Rinaldi’s mom, Laura, that her three children understood the responsibility they have to broaden their perspectives and be involved in giving back. She had those principles in mind when she took her three kids to volunteer at a Special Olympics soccer game, but perhaps she didn’t know how formative her decision would be.

Laura Rinaldi didn’t realize it at the time, but her son was hooked from that day on. It had been a number of weeks since the family’s first day of volunteering when Rinaldi began to ask his mom when they’d be able to volunteer again and what volunteering may entail. Rinaldi’s questioning eventually prompted the family to volunteer at Special Olympics basketball events every Saturday and to coach a Special Olympics track team.

Now, Rinaldi has taken ownership of his involvement with the organization in a way that his parents likely couldn’t have imagined when he first arrived at that soccer event.

“It’s really heartwarming to see,” Laura Rinaldi said. “To see Nick this year with the Vandy football platform revisiting that piece of him has been really nice to see. It just makes me so proud to see him walking that Star Walk.”

Ever since Clark Lea Sr. introduced Rinaldi to Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management professor Mario Avila on the sideline of Vanderbilt’s turf practice field, Avila has seen something in Rinaldi. As a result, Avila–who Rinaldi refers to as a close friend now–told Rinaldi that wanted to do anything he could to help him reach his goal of becoming an NFL player. Rinaldi didn’t know how Avila and a group of MBA students could make that happen, but then it clicked.

Rinaldi believed Avila and his classmates could help him stand out to NFL teams by giving them a glimpse into his personality. He had heard about the AFCA Allstate Good Works Team–which honors 22 players for their extraordinary community service every season. Rinaldi initially approached Avila because he wanted to be considered for a nomination.

Avila challenged Rinaldi to think of himself as an enterprise and to become a client that his Sports Business class–which came up with the idea for Vanderbilt basketball’s squishmellow promotion in 2025-26–advised while he worked to build out something that’s important to him. Avila acknowledges that it’s difficult to sit in front of a group of peers and allow them to poke and prod every piece of an idea.

Rinaldi did it, though, and quickly realized that his Special Olympics involvement is far more than a means to stand out to NFL evaluators.

“I didn’t bring him Special Olympics, Nick has already been doing this,” Avila said. “I think that means even more. He didn’t become a client to try to prove that he was something he wasn’t, it was just the realization of the opportunity he had as a leader to give back in a different way.”

REESE WIEMEYER AND Rinaldi met as middle schoolers when their elementary schools funneled into the same middle school. Little did they know it then, but their shared affinity for sports would platform them to become lifelong friends. As Rinaldi has grown, Wiemeyer has been a fixture in his life.

Wiemeyer helped with Dover-Sherborn High School’s track program and was a manager for its basketball program–which Rinaldi was a standout for before picking up football as a senior. Rinaldi left his hometown to take a post-grad year at Salisbury School in Connecticut, but returned for a pseudo gap semester in the spring of 2022 in the time between finishing there and joining Vanderbilt as a walk-on.

Rinaldi admits that he didn’t have much on his plate and asked Wiemeyer’s parents if he could help Wiemeyer out in any way. The family obliged and allowed Rinaldi to be his main helper for a number of days. Rinaldi helped Wiemeyer with all of his daily tasks, which opened his eyes to how much it takes for Wiemeyer to get up in the morning and do the basic things that Rinaldi once took for granted.

Wiemeyer has Cerebral Palsy and has difficulty controlling his body. His Cerebral Palsy impacts only his motor planning, though. Those who know Wiemeyer well know that his mind is sharp and that he’s as knowledgeable a sports mind as there is in his Massachusetts town.

If anyone can attest to that, it’s Rinaldi.

“When you don’t know him or aren’t used to hearing Reese talk, you sometimes can’t understand what he’s saying, but Nick has always known what he’s saying,” Laura Rinaldi said. “They just have a really cool bond.”

Wiemeyer started a soccer blog in 2021 and used it as a platform to share his thoughts via a communication device on all of the sport’s biggest storylines—as well as Americans not referring to it by the title of football. Wiemeyer developed a love for soccer when he moved to Sheffield, England, at four years old so that his parents could enroll him in a specialized school for children with disabilities.

The Wiemeyers moved back to America in 2011, sparking Wiemeyer’s love for football, basketball and American sports as a whole. Rinaldi’s rise from Vanderbilt walk-on to a fixture of its defense and NFL prospect has been a thrill to Wiemeyer–whose father often sends Rinaldi’s family videos of Wiemeyer celebrating when Rinaldi sacks a quarterback or gets his hands on a pass.

But, the sentiment coming out of Rinaldi’s camp is that Wiemeyer embracing Rinaldi has been more impactful to him than anything he could do for Wiemeyer.

“Reese is so inspirational,” Rinaldi told Vandy on SI. “He’s just such a genuinely happy person. Given his situation, it can be easy for someone to fall into the trap of self doubt and that stuff, but he is the epitome of a happy person.”

The way Rinaldi speaks about his longtime friend is similar to the way he speaks about the Special Olympics community as a whole–which his mom praises for its lack of pretense and the refreshing nature of its combined attitude. In the same way Rinaldi admires Wiemeyer’s positivity, he notes that he admires the community’s mindset and positivity as a whole.

He believes that the community he’s partnered with is one that society as a whole can learn from. As a result, he’s worked to expose every Vanderbilt player to what the Special Olympics has to offer. If he can flip one player into an advocate for the organization, he will be satisfied.

For his teammates, and any community member considering involvement with the Special Olympics, Rinaldi has a message.

“You don't know how much it'll benefit you, just go to one,” Rinaldi said. “It will give you so much perspective on your life.”

FOR AS LONG as Rinaldi has known Wiemeyer, he’s known him as an LSU football fan. But, that’s changed. He learned a year ago that bringing Wiemeyer to Nashville for Vanderbilt’s win over LSU and gifting him with Vanderbilt gear was enough to get the job done.

Rinaldi suspects that Wiemeyer--who is enrolled at Boston College and is involved with Boston College soccer--still may say that LSU is second to Vanderbilt in his personal pecking order, but that appears to be okay by him as long as Vanderbilt is Wiemeyer’s No. 1 team.

And, it doesn’t appear as if there’s any doubt about that at this point–at least, not as long as Rinaldi is a Vanderbilt football player.

A year ago, Rinaldi brought Wiemeyer to Vanderbilt’s Friday practice and introduced him to the team ahead of the LSU game while Laura Rinaldi stood outside the huddle recording. She had tears in her eyes. She attributes them to how proud she was of her son and Vanderbilt’s team as a whole, as well as how meaningful the moment was to her because of the family’s connection with the Wiemeyers.

Now, Wiemeyer is coming back to Nashville for Vanderbilt’s home game against Alabama on November 14. The day comes up often in a conversation with everyone in Rinaldi’s camp. Every Special Olympics athlete Rinaldi brings in means something to him, but Wiemeyer may be the only one that can bring those around him to tears.

“That’s gonna be a great, great day,” Laura Rinaldi said. “That’s gonna be a great day.”

The last time Wiemeyer was on Vanderbilt’s campus, he donned a black Rinaldi jersey and was the star of the weekend. Rinaldi gifted Wiemeyer with a game ball a year ago and told his teammates how much he means to him.

Now, Rinaldi intends to give him a more extravagant experience on the back of his experience serving the Special Olympics community. And, based on the first three weeks of the season, Rinaldi is uniquely equipped to do so.

“Welcoming him as a Vanderbilt football family member meant so much to me that I could get emotional about it,” Rinaldi said. “I want to give him everything I can.”

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