Buoniconti for over three decades has used his deep Miami roots to help raise awareness for those in needTHE BUONICONTI FUND
This weekend holds a special significance for Miami Project to Cure Paralysis President MARC BUONICONTI, the son of Pro Football HOFer NICK BUONICONTI, who back when he was a 19-year-old LB for The Citadel was left paralyzed from the shoulders down after an on-field injury. Years after that fateful day, Buoniconti has also become the leader for The Buoniconti Fund, started by his father, which looks to raise money for The Miami Project's research. On Monday in N.Y., the fund will stage its annual “Sports Legends Dinner” to recognize figures such as ALEX RODRIGUEZ, RAY ALLEN, BOB GRIESE and a host of others, all while continuing to garner support for the fund’s long-term success.
LAYING THE GROUNDWORK: I don’t go to N.Y. until Sunday, so I’ll be here in Miami just working on finalizing everything for the dinner. We have to do the seating arrangement and take care of any last minute ticket sales. I’m always making sure our guests’ travel itineraries are set, all the hotels and other logistics. It’s not easy with a lot of moving parts. We have a huge auction that we do, talking about hundreds and hundreds of different items. So we have to price all that and keep everything organized.
OFF TO THE BIG APPLE: Sunday I’ll get up and fly out of Miami around 2:00pm ET. I’ll get in around 5:00 and some specialty transportation will pick me up. Then I’ll go to the Hilton and then that night, like I do every year, we do a little bit of a pre-birthday party for me, with my actual birthday being next Saturday. The dinner is just always around my birthday. So me and about 25 of my good friends and family will have dinner at a nice restaurant right near the hotel. These are our childhood friends that I’m still close with, guys from high school, guys from The Citdel that I played with. The rest of the night I’m just chilling out and watching some football. Unfortunately I’ll miss the Dolphins game that day. We’re 2-0 so pretty good so far. Then Monday is an incredibly full day. I’ll be doing some media in the morning then at 3:00pm we have our Buoniconti Fund BOD meeting, which lasts about an hour. Then from there we go right to the VIP reception. That goes for an hour and a half then a little later on we'll do a red carpet walk with all the legends. Then people enjoy the auction, and I'll then go into the ballroom to get setup. The dinner itself starts around 7:30.
WHY IT MATTERS: Every year we get to celebrate the accomplishments of the previous year. We recap all the great work that we’ve done and we get to share those breakthroughs and cutting edge research with our donors. It’s a way to reinvigorate and inspire everyone to charge up their batteries and get ready for the next year. It’s an opportunity for us to present to the donors what we’ve done, where we’re at and why we need to continue raising money to accomplish our mission.
FACES IN THE CROWD: I’ve known Alex (Rodriguez) for years. I used to see him over at Riviera Country Club where we were both members and he was always out there playing golf. He’s an awesome guy, very philanthropic. Bob Griese, shoot I’ve known him my whole life. Since I was a kid in the locker room and of course I know his sons, too. We all went to the same high school. Bob has always been there for us. Ray Allen I’ve never actually met but I’m looking forward to it. I followed his career so it will be good to touch base. For all of these guys to donate their time is incredible, we’re very fortunate to have these types of legends be there for us. Then of course how can you forget BOB COSTAS. To pick any guy in the world to be the emcee and represent us, I could never pick a better guy than Bob. He’s willing to do whatever to help us.
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