The American Project

In 1985, The Citadel linebacker Marc Buoniconti, son of now-hall-of-famer Nick Buoniconti, almost died trying to make a tackle. Luckily, he was only paralyzed.

Now, almost a full 21 years and more than half of his life later, Buoniconti, 40, will return to The Citadel to have his number retired.21 years ago, he was a sophomore middle linebacker; 21 years ago, he was a rising NFL prospect; 21 years ago, he was a kid; 21 years ago, the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis was just getting founded.

Buoniconti had broken his C-3 vertebrae in his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed from the shoulders down. He had trouble breathing on the field and only survived because he was rushed to a hospital and put under a respirator. He was sent overnight home to Miami to get the best care.

Then over the next seven months, he learned how to breathe.

But Buoniconti is just one of many. About 11,000 people suffer a spinal cord injury each year in the United States alone, which equals almost half a million cases in total. 78 percent of all SCI cases involve males 16 to 30 years of age and almost half of all cases occur from motor vehicle accidents.

And as in Buoniconti’s case, many of these people are lucky to be alive.

In 2004, jockey Gary Birzer was thrown from a horse at Mountaineer Park and broke six vertebrae in his neck, paralyzing him from the neck down. Additionally, only $100,000 out of an almost seven-figure medical bill was covered by insurance, which doesn’t even include lost earnings.

We take for granted how invincible athletes seem to be to the point that we freak out when Terrell Owens possibly attempted to commit suicide. But we forget just how human they are.

We quickly forget about Laveraneus Coles because football players don’t get raped. We quickly forget about the Vikings’ Korey Stringer and the Cardinals’ Darryl Kile because star athletes don’t die. And more recently, we almost ignored the Duquesne basketball shootings and will soon forget Rice’s Dale Lloyd after Saturday’s game because, like with Buoniconti, they still are just kids.

But they’re not: they’re human.

Now, we don’t need to remember these people, but we do need to remember that they are human. We need to remember that overnight, during practice, or during a game, they are still human.

21 years ago, Buoniconti was a kid living in a dream. Now he is more human than most of us.

Since the accident, Buoniconti, who still has no feeling below his neck, and his father have dedicated their lives to raising money for the Miami Project, which has surpassed $200 million so far. But they’ve only just begun.

86 percent of the money donated goes directly to research to SCI and the project spends $45,000 a day. However, that is less than $.10 per case.

In May, Gloria and Emilio Estefan donated $1 million to the Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis, the most prolific fund for the Project, which continues their longtime support of the cause. And that goes a long way.

But every day, 30 people across the country suffer a SCI, and the key word is people.

These are all people, regardless they are football players or engineers or anything else, and we forget that.

So let’s not make a big deal when TO possibly attempted to commit suicide and realize that he is just another human being and that happens. Should we be concerned? Yes. But let’s not be ignorant and be surprised because these athletes seem so foreign and immortal.

They’re not.

Every day, Marc Buoniconti lives to help 450,000 other people not so that he can be cured, but so that everyone can be cured.

“I am looking at this arm on the turf and I follow it up to this hand and it’s my hand and I can’t feel it,” Buoniconti said. “I can’t move it and I look up and see them looking down at me with these golf-ball eyes and I knew that they knew, too.”

That’s an athlete, regardless of what you might think.

And a human, too.