His legacy bigger off field
Buoniconti triumphed over tragedy
Near the end of the HBO Sports documentary “The Many Lives of Nick Buoniconti,” the Hall of Fame linebacker, former high-level corporate executive, attorney and relentless fundraiser said he always considered himself “a renaissance man.”
Buoniconti’s older son, Nick III, chuckled when that was repeated to him: “He calls himself a renaissance man? He’s no renaissance man. He’s a streetfighter from Springfield, Massachusetts. That’s what got him where he was.”
Both men were right. Nick Buoniconti II, who died yesterday at age 78, became a renaissance man because he was a relentless streetfighter.
An All-American at Notre Dame, a 13th-round draft choice of the Patriots of the AFL, the biggest name on the Dolphins’ 17-0 team’s noname defense, the son of a South Springfield baker who woke up at 4:30 every morning to make bread with his father-in-law, Buoniconti had trouble remembering things by the time the documentary released last autumn was filmed. He was suffering from dementia, likely brought on by CTE, a delayed, cruel side effect of playing football. Even so, Buoniconti had a clear vision of how he’ll be
remembered.
“My legacy will not be on the field,” Buoniconti said. “It’ll be off the field.”
Football honors are a footnote in a legacy dominated by his becoming the greatest fundraiser for research relating to injuries of the spinal cord.
The same qualities — boundless determination, refusal to accept labels, intelligence — that allowed an undersized linebacker not considered a pro prospect to be enshrined in Canton, Ohio, made him ideally suited to raising money for a cause so personal.
The fact that Buoniconti had starred for three teams (Notre Dame, Patriots and Dolphins) from three different regions of the country followed by such passionate fan bases certainly didn’t hurt his ability to make “The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis,” which he co-founded with Barth A. Green, M.D., such a huge success.
The impetus for Buoniconti’s involvement, born of a tragic family event, inspired him to greatness more significant than anything he achieved in pads and a helmet.
His second son, Marc Buoniconti, has lived from a wheelchair since suffering an injury making a tackle for The Citadel at East Tennessee State as a sophomore in 1985.
The Miami Project reportedly has raised more than a half-billion dollars.
Buoniconti also didn’t take the easy path and hide when dementia began to rob him of himself in recent years. Instead, he urged parents to have their children play flag football until age 14, delaying the damage done by tackling. He announced he would donate his brain to the Boston University CTE Center, and he and his wife, Lynn, pledged to start a fund for CTE research.
In one of many poignant moments during “The Many Lives of Nick Buoniconti,” Marc Buoniconti said: “When we were growing up, football gave everything to us. And then look what it did to me, and now look what it’s doing to him. I mean, do you love the game? Do you hate the game? Do you love it and hate it?”
Said Nick, after sharing that he required 24-hour care and took 20 pills a day: “I think Marc is amazing that he’s able to put up with being paralyzed so many years. We’re both, in a way, paralyzed.”
Buoniconti had Marc introduce him at his Hall of Fame ceremony in 2001. Marc’s speech concluded with, “Whatever it is you’ve got inside you, we see it. We feel it. And it gives each one of us a little more reason to believe. Ladies and gentlemen, my hero, my friend, my dad, Nick Buoniconti.”
Nick wrapped up his speech thusly: “I would trade in this ring (from Super Bowl VII in undefeated season) and all my individual accomplishments if one thing could happen in my lifetime. My son Marc dreams that he walks, and as a father, I would like nothing more than to walk by his side.”
It never happened, but progress in spinal-cord research made through the father’s relentless efforts, is lost on no one.
Effort was what Buoniconti was all about. He starred during his seven seasons with the AFL’s local team before the Dolphins fleeced the Patriots by dealing linebacker John Bramlett, quarterback Kim Hammond and a fifth-round pick for him. That surely must have left Patriots and Red Sox fans alike lamenting, “No, No Nanette, say it ain’t so.”
The deal worked out well for Buoniconti, who won two Super Bowls with the Dolphins.
Life threw Buoniconti some wicked curveballs and to look at his time on earth is to be reminded of a quote that I have seen attributed to radio preacher Chuck Swindoll: “Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it.”
Nobody could ever accuse No. 85 of giving anything less than 100 percent to make what happened to him become something he used to make the world a better place for others.