BY: DAVID COLEN
Originally Published: March 1, 2007

I DON'T think I made a very good first-impression on Marc Buoniconti.

For starters, I entered the offices of the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and promptly extended my hand to shake his. That is, despite the fact he hasn't moved an extremity for the last 21 years. I then assumed incorrectly he requires the use of a respirator, when in fact the tube into which he occasionally breathes serves only as a device to control his wheelchair; he exhales to go forward, inhales to go backward. And when I razzed him by saying no grads from his alma mater, The Citadel, ever make it to the NFL, he rattled off the names of three, including nine-year pro Stump Mitchell.

No matter. Buoniconti was gracious. More so than just about anyone I can remember interviewing in my life. Thing is, there was a time when he knew just as little about quadriplegia as me. That was before the events of October 26, 1985, the Saturday that forever changed his existence.

Buoniconti was a muscular sophomore linebacker for the Bulldogs. He had aspirations of playing football for a living, just like his old man. His father's legendary coach, Don Shula, always said he was welcome to try walking on with the Miami Dolphins if no other squads showed interest. But that dream died in abrupt and unthinkably cruel fashion when he was whacked between his third and fourth vertebrae in a game at East Tennessee State.

The impact of the hit busted Buoniconti's neck and severed his spinal cord. He lay completely still, but never lost consciousness. Upon arrival at nearby Johnson City Hospital, doctors immediately confirmed what he already was coming to grips with. "I knew right away that I'd be paralyzed for the rest of my life," he says.

There was no reason for Buoniconti or his attending physicians to think otherwise. Back then, there was little-to-no-research being conducted anywhere in the world to eradicate paralysis. "People just didn't get into it because it was considered a waste of time," he says matter-of-factly. "It used to be that you'd see someone in a wheelchair and it was a life-sentence. Now, we don't feel that way."

Because of research conducted at the MPTCP over the last two decades, Buoniconti expects to walk within the next five years. That painstaking research has been made possible by the nearly quarter-of-a-billion dollars generated by the Buoniconti Fund, which acts as the money-raising arm of the MPTCP.

The cash is necessary to purchase equipment and to pay the salaries of more than 200 neurosurgeons, researchers, clinicians and therapists on staff.

And the dough has been piling up both through direct contributions as well as ticket-sales and auction items at special events. For example, "Destination Fashion," which will be held this Friday night at the Bal Harbour Shops and feature an A-list of attendees. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is expected to come. As are musicians Gloria and Emilio Estefan; actor Tommy Lee Jones; former big-league catcher Gary Carter; racecar driver Emerson Fittipaldi; golfer Jack Nicklaus; and singer Donna Summer, who has agreed to perform.

An impressive list, for sure. What's even more remarkable is the entire litany of athletes, current and retired, who have lent support to The Buoniconti Fund over the years. Mostly through appearances at the annual Celebrity Golf Invitational held at the Bear's Club in Jupiter, Fla., and at the annual Great Sports Legends Dinner held at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.

There are way too many to mention. Some of the more notables: Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Muhammad Ali, Henry Aaron, Joe Montana, Lawrence Taylor, Yogi Berra, Cal Ripken Jr., Stan Musial, and Sugar Ray Leonard. A more comprehensive list is on display in the lobby of the MPTCP. It's worth the trip to see.

SUPPORT OF A LOVING FAMILY
That stunning lobby also contains memorabilia commemorating the Miami Dolphins' unbeaten run through the 1972 season, a campaign that was capped with a 14-7 win over the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII. The defensive captain that year was seven-year-old Marc Buoniconti's father, Nick, who since the 1970s has organized a Champagne toast with teammates every autumn once the last unbeaten NFL team is felled.

So good was Miami's stop-unit back then that it held Washington's offense scoreless in the championship game (the Redskins' only points came as the result of a botched field goal attempt by Garo Yepremian). And it pitched shutouts on three other occasions during the regular season. So good was Nick Buoniconti as a middle linebacker that he was inducted into the professional football Hall of Fame in 2001.

Marc Buoniconti sat on the podium that August morning in Canton, Ohio, as his father was bestowed the game's highest honor. Truth be told, the pair has never much been too far apart. As a kid growing up in Pinecrest, he often ran around the Orange Bowl field on Saturdays as his father and the rest of the Dolphins players completed walk-throughs for their next home opponent. He'd even take snaps for Yepremian as the two-time Pro Bowl kicker warmed up.

"It was all about sports for me in those days," says Buoniconti. "And the championship was the first one ever down here. It had a way of bringing the area together. What I remember most from the perfect season is my mom going bananas. I couldn't even watch the games in the same room as her. She's an exercise nut now and she's in the best shape, but when she was younger, she'd have a cigarette in one hand and a Scotch in the other."

Upon hearing the news of the severity of their son's injury, the Buonicontis began an exhaustive search for the physician to whom they'd ultimately entrust his care. More to the point, the physician to whom they'd ultimately entrust his life. Ironically, the quest brought them back to South Florida, to Dr. Barth A. Green, who'd been specializing in spinal cord injuries for the previous 20 years.

With the cooperation of Green, as well as members of the business community, the Buonicontis launched the MPTCP. Today, it's the largest SCI research center in the world, boasting local chapters in more than two dozen cities around the United States. Its mission, in very lay terms, is to curtail the effects of SCI and to discover methods of promoting cell regeneration in the spinal cord that would enable guys like Marc Buoniconti and the nearly 54 million others with a debilitating form of SCI to walk again.

ONE OF THE FORTUNATE ONES
Marc Buoniconti wasn't a rich kid growing up. He attended Christopher Columbus High School, a prestigious private institution, but he was never showered by his parents with material things. Never so much as received an allowance. He guesses that his father's first pro contract was worth less than five-figures. Maybe right around $7500 or so. That was with the Boston Patriots of the old AFL back in 1962, before the age of athletes as cultural icons living in waterfront mansions with eight-car garages, lifestyles financed in large part by sneaker and apparel companies.

What makes Marc Buoniconti fortunate is that he has an insurance policy that covers the astronomical costs of his care. So that he's never alone at his Coral Gables home, Buoniconti maintains a rotation of four part-time nurses to assist with his day-to-day needs. Not every victim of paralysis is so lucky. The unlucky ones must rely on family members who more often than not have their own responsibilities and therefore cannot devote themselves fully to act as caretakers.

There was enormous animosity between the Buonicontis and The Citadel in the months and years after that horrific day in 1985. The family alleged the school was negligent for allowing Marc to take the field in the first place, as he was still recovering from a prior neck injury. They also contended a collar he was wearing, which was fitted for him by athletic trainer Andy Clawson and team doctor E.K. Wallace, Jr., is what forced his head forward upon colliding with ETSU tailback Herman Jacobs.

A lawsuit was filed on behalf of the family against the school in 1988. In it, they sought nearly $23 million in damages. An ugly, five-week trial ensued with an $800,000 settlement being reached moments before a jury, comprised entirely of Charleston, S.C., residents, folks who'd lived and worked all their lives in the shadows of the nearly 200-year-old military academy, was able to read its verdict.

The decision, shamefully, found in favor of The Citadel. Had the Buonicontis not accepted the defendants' offer, they would have received nothing.

Marc Buoniconti never returned to The Citadel as a student, completing his coursework at the University of Miami en route to a psychology degree. (As a point of fact, Buoniconti, the same kid who never took academics seriously enough to enroll in a more competitive Division I-A football program than The Citadel's, earned a spot on the Dean's List at UM). The two sides finally made amends, publicly at least, as the No. 59 that Buoniconti wore ever so briefly for the Bulldogs was retired during a halftime ceremony at a home game last fall.

"I think we're both very happy that it's behind us," he says. "You have to forgive and that's what I did. Nobody won in that situation."

READYING TO WALK AGAIN
"When I first got hurt, there was absolutely nothing being done," says Buoniconti. "It was considered a dead science. People did not believe that you could repair, regenerate or grow cells in the brain or spinal cord. But now, we've been able to show that you can. In 20 years, to be a couple of years short of finding a cure ... The time may seem like a lot, but to go from starting from scratch and nearly curing something in the next three to five years, we think, is extraordinary."

To this point, all of the tests the MPTCP has devised are being administered exclusively on animals. It is in the process of preparing clinical trials in humans, which it expects to conduct within the next 24 to 36 months. Buoniconti, just like his entire staff, is steadfast in the belief that a cure for paralysis is close. He doubts he'll ever regain the ability to run like the carefree dervish he once was, hoping only to become "a bit more independent and having a better quality of life."

When that day comes, when he's able to stand up entirely with his own strength, he says the first thing he'll do is hug his mother. Then he'll hug his father, the person who taught him the importance of humility and hard work. The son of a baker in Springfield, Massachusetts, Nick Buoniconti picked tobacco as a child to help his parents survive.

"He's done way more than a son could ask," says Marc. "He made a promise to me when I was first injured that he would do everything in his power to get me on my feet again and he's never wavered."

No wonder, then, that when I rattle off the names of all the Olympic medalists and the Super Bowl MVPs and the big-league batting champions who've contributed to the MPTCP, and I ask Marc Buoniconti to name his all-time favorite sports legend, he replies, "My dad."

But I probably should have known that, too.