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Marc Buoniconti — paralyzed at 19 — says hit on the football field ‘saved my life’

When Marc Buoniconti talks about his teenage years in Miami in the 1980s, his eyes widen and his smile turns into a smirk.

It was the cocaine cowboy days, when bodies were stuffed into car trunks at Dadeland Mall and bales of marijuana fell from the sky.

Buoniconti, a party boy with a famous father and friends who passed around joints and more, loved every moment. So much so that his mother had to sidle up to a teacher the night before his high school graduation, whispering to find out whether her son would get a diploma the next day.