There’s more to Colts’ Rodrigo Blakenship than his black specs

Black recreational spectacles didn’t always frame Rodrigo Blankenship’s brown eyes. He used to wear regular glasses. On the soccer pitch. On the basketball court.

Even under his football helmet when he lined up to kick field goals or cover kickoffs.

“Every now and then he’d have to cover a kick … he would get blown up and his glasses would be tilted,” said Billy Shackelford, who coached the Indianapolis Colts rookie kicker at Sprayberry High School in Marietta, Georgia. So he adopted the unpopular black sports glasses and made them “cool again,” Shackelford said.

As Blankenship would say: #RespectTheSpecs.

He has alleviated the Colts’ kicking woes with his powerful right leg, a meticulous, maniacal work ethic and, yes, the black recreational spectacles. The Georgia graduate has converted 24 of 27 field goals and 30 of 32 extra points, becoming one of the league’s leading scorers — and a folk hero for those who look and act a little different.

He told reporters last month that he tries to be “as repeatable and consistent as I can be with my process and trust that it’s going to lead to repeatable consistent results.” That after making the first game-winning field goal of his career, a 39-yarder to clinch a 34-31 victory over the Green Bay Packers.

“I’ve been kicking longer than I haven’t been in my life to this point,” he said.

That he has. But Blankenship doesn’t just make field goals. He assembles Legos and used to collect Transformers, Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards and World War II figurines.

“He knows what he is, and that’s one of the reasons why he’s so lovable,” said Indianapolis Star sports columnist Gregg Doyel. “He knows exactly what he is and he doesn’t hide it.”

And that’s a glasses wearing, Lego collecting, field-goal kicking phenomenon who will come with the Colts to Allegiant Stadium on Sunday for a 1:05 p.m. tilt with the Raiders.

“He’s just uniquely himself,” Shackelford said. “He doesn’t try to metamorphosize into what the typical athlete is supposed to be. … It’s kind of refreshing, because it’s typically not that way.”

The kicker

He was a soccer player first who’d attend camps in his mother Izabel’s native Brazil, where the sport is part of the country’s identity. But it was love at first sight, er, first kick, when Blankenship, then 10, kicked a football for the first time. He kicked another one, then another one until he was quite literally the best kicker in the country.

No hyperbole necessary.

His father, Ken, served as his coach and would drive him to specialized kicking camps across the country. More than 60 of them by his count, with his 1996 Ford Ranger serving as a de facto classroom in which the younger Blankenship would mentally prepare during monotonous rides.

“It was always ‘Never think you’re going to go to a camp and beat everybody there,’” the elder Blankenship recalled relaying to his son. “’Always be prepared to run into someone that was better than you.’”

But that almost never happened.

Blankenship blossomed into the country’s top kicker, per several ranking services devoted entirely to specialists. He’d never rest on his laurels, though, and instead devoted hours to additional practice at Sprayberry’s football field — leaving only when he made a certain numbers of kicks from a certain distance.

Fatigue be damned.

Blankenship had long hoped to attend the University of Florida, where his father played split end from 1967 to 1969. But the Gators didn’t come calling until he had already committed as a preferred walk-on to Georgia, where he won the kicking job in 2016 and earned a scholarship in 2017.

Throughout his tenure at Georgia, he’d review each and every kick with special teams coach Scott Fountain, compiling thorough notes about the makes, the misses. The touchbacks, the returns.

“He really believes in his approach, whether people believe in his approach or not,” said Fountain, who also coached Raiders kicker Daniel Carlson at Auburn and coaches now at Arkansas. “He’s just a really locked-in kid.”

Blankenship made all 200 of his extra points from 2016 through 2019 and 80 of 97 field goals. He capped his career as the nation’s most outstanding place-kicker, claiming the annual Lou Groza Award last December.

He caught the Colts’ attention and signed with the club in April as an undrafted free agent. He spent training camp competing with incumbent kicker Chase McLaughlin to replace the legendary Adam Vinatieri, who played the final 14 of his 24 NFL seasons with the Colts and made more field goals (599) and scored more points (2,673) than any player in NFL history.

Colts coach Frank Reich is among those impressed with Blankenship’s work ethic. He said his rookie kicker is “very, very intense. Very obsessed. Always very focused.

“Rod has really earned that respect from the way he’s carried himself,” Reich added. “There’s no doubt in everybody’s mind that this guy is doing everything he can to come through in the clutch for us.”

The person

Blankenship revealed earlier this season that he assembled Lego sets the night before he learned he made the team. But several other sets of toys and collectibles remain at his parents’ home in Marietta. He’d play the Yu-Gi-Oh card game with his friends for hours. He collected Pokemon cards, too.

He’d collect Transformers, Hot Wheels, toy tanks and soldiers, assembling detailed World War II dioramas that his father hopes will someday reside in his “man cave.”

“He always had outside interests,” Ken Blankenship said.

Rodrigo also was an exemplary and popular student, voted by his peers at Sprayberry as the most athletic person in their senior class — and the most likely to become a pro athlete.

He was a journalism student at Georgia who’d sit in the front row of his classes and engage in topical discussions about whatever subject his professors deemed important.

“Being an athlete of course, he had some really insightful things to say about topics related to sports media in society,” said Vicki Michaelis, a professor at Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication — of which Blankenship is a proud graduate.

“Once his kicking career is over … he can be a great media member. I expect to see him maybe try to do that,” she added.

But at 23, his career is just beginning.

He’s already one of the NFL’s best kickers, rec specs, toy collections and all. He’s unapologetic about being himself on the football field and away from it.

“People can relate to him, man. He’s a little bit different,” Shackelford said. “He’s not necessarily the cool kid. He’s just a guy that gets out and grinds. He does his job. He’s not an egomaniac. He’s a team guy.

“Just a real dude.”

Contact reporter Sam Gordon at sgordon@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BySamGordon on Twitter.