Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? Nick Buoniconti, 1958-61 Linebacker The former All-American has dedicated his post-football life to curing paralysis BY DAN MURPHY T New Jersey visiting a college room- mate when the phone rang and the doctor on the other end told him to get to Johnson City, Tenn., as soon as possible. Buoniconti's son Marc, a linebacker at The Citadel who played with the same fearless intensity as his father, dislocated his neck be- tween the third and fourth cervical vertebrae while making a tackle on a third-and-short play. "He was dying in the hospital in Johnson City," Buoniconti said. "He played East Tennessee State and made a tackle and before his arm hit the ground he said, 'Dad, I knew I was paralyzed.' " When he did hit the turf, Marc he worst day of Nick Buoniconti's life was Oct. 6, 1985. He was in and Nick's lives changed almost im- mediately. Marc hasn't moved any part of his body below his shoulders on his own since then. Nick put a busy and successful corporate career on the back burner to try to fulfill a hospital bedside promise to do any- thing he could to help his son out of a seemingly helpless situation. To- gether, they have spent the last 26 years raising money to find a cure for paralysis. Weeks after his son's injury, Bu- oniconti spearheaded the growing fundraising arm of the newly formed Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. The group has raised more than $350 million in the last quarter century to pay for research. Within the next few months, the Federal Drug Admin- istration will likely give its blessing to put that work to its biggest test yet by allowing human trials for a procedure intended to restore up to 75 percent of function in paralyzed individuals. Buoniconti's picture hangs in Buoniconti made 212 tackles during his Notre Dame career, including a team-high 74 in his senior sea- son when he earned All-America accolades. pany, a university trustee and a tele- vision host for the country's most popular football show ("Inside The NFL," which then aired on HBO). If the Miami Project's trials are suc- cessful, that entire list will pale in comparison to his help in solving spi- nal cord injuries. All of those accom- plishments, however, have played a role in landing the 71-year-old where he is today. Notre Dame coach Terry Brennan three football halls of fame. He's an All-American, a NFL All-Pro and a two-time Super Bowl champion. He has served stints as a sports agent, a president of a Fortune 500 com- 60 APRIL 2012 was the first to see the innate tough- ness and perseverance that would make Buoniconti special when the latter was a star at Cathedral High School in Springfield, Mass. Brennan recruited him to come to Notre Dame as a lineman and linebacker even though he was less than six feet tall and weighed barely 200 pounds. The coach left after Buoniconti's fresh- man year, which ushered in one of the worst eras in Irish football history under new leader Joe Kuharich. ent I've ever seen and just butchered it," Buoniconti said. "The players didn't have much respect for him and he didn't have much respect for the players. I spent three years un- der Kuharich, and it was three of the worst football years I've ever spent in my life." The Irish went 12-18 during that "He took some of the greatest tal- PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME MEDIA RELATIONS stretch with very few bright spots. They beat rival USC all three years and knocked off a highly ranked Syracuse team with a dramatic last second field goal in 1961. Buoniconti made 212 tackles in his career, in- cluding 74 to lead the team in his senior season. He said playing on a losing team prepared him well to deal with the inevitable disappoint- ments of medical research. "Experiencing some losses has tempered me into being able to ac- cept the fact that research is not perfect. It's not something you like BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED