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 The Great Sports Legends Dinner pledges to bring The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis more than three million dollars closer to a cure. Last year's dinner raised $4.5 million for paralysis research. Over the past twenty-one years, more than $34,000,000 has been raised at the Great Sports Legends Dinners, making it the cornerstone of The Miami Project's annual budget. The Great Sports Legends Dinner has gained a reputation for uniting individuals from the worlds of sports, business and entertainment. Over 1,300 people attend this gala event each year, which honors Great Sports Legends from different athletic categories.
This year again, we are honored to have Tom Brokaw be our Master of Ceremonies. The highlight of this terrific evening is paying tribute to Great Sports Legends and Honorees. Our amazing lineup of 2007 Legends and Honorees include Earvin "Magic" Johnson, John Elway, Gary Player, Mark Messier, Joe Morgan, Kelly Slater, Gil de Ferran, Janet Evans, Lesley Visser, Lois Pope and The Bantle Family.
2006 Legends and Honorees were: Lance Armstrong, Patrick Ewing, Emmitt Smith, Wade Boggs, Dean Smith, Tony Hawk, John Vanbiesbrouck, Michael Chang, Beverly Kearney. We are were also thrilled to honor General H. Norman Schwarzkopf as our Great American Icon recipient, The Chambers Family as our Buoniconti Fund Humanitarian Award recipient and Craig H. Neilsen as our Outstanding Business Leader.
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When
Monday, September 17, 2007
6:00pm Cocktail Reception & Silent Auction
7:30pm Dinner and Live Auction
Business Attire
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Where
Waldorf=Astoria
Grand Ballroom
Park Avenue at 50th Street
New York, New York |
Past Legends and Honorees
Hank Aaron | Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | Amy Alcott | Muhammad Ali | Marcus Allen | Lyle Alzado | Mario Andretti | Michael Andretti | Eddie Arcaro | Lance Armstrong | Arthur Ashe | Red Auerbach | Jerry Bailey | Charles Barkley | Rick Barry | Carmen Basilio | Bob Beamon | Johnny Bench | Yogi Berra | Bonnie Blair | George Blanda | Wade Boggs | Julius Boros | Mike Bossy | Ray Bourque | Scotty Bowman | Bill Bradley | George Brett | Jim Brown | Dick Butkus | Rod Carew | Gary Carter | Billy Casper | The Chambers Family | Michael Chang | Nadia Comenici | Bart Conner | Jimmy Conners | Angel Cordero, Jr. | Bob Costas | Jim Courier | Bob Cousy | Walter Cronkite | Larry Csonka | Oscar de la Hoya | Donna de Varona | Dave DeBusschere | Gail Devers | Joe DiMaggio | Marcel Dionne | Mike Ditka | Tony Dorsett | Roy Emerson | Mike Eruzione | Julius Erving | Phil Esposito | Gloria Estefan | Chris Evert | Patrick Ewing | Bob Feller | Mary Joe Fernandez | Carlton Fisk | Emerson Fittipaldi | Bruce Fleisher | Peggy Fleming | Ray Floyd | Whitey Ford | George Foreman | A. J. Foyt | Joe Frazier | Walt Frazier | Rowdy Gaines | Tim Gannon | Don Garlits | Boom Boom Geoffrion | Ed Giacomin | Althea Gibson | Frank Gifford | Rod Gilbert | Pancho Gonzales | Evonne Goolagong | Wayne Gretzky | Darrell Gwynn | Gary Hall, Jr. | Scott Hamilton | Dorothy Hamill | Mia Hamm | Franco Harris | John Havlicek | Tony Hawk | Larry Holmes | Evander Holyfield | Gordie Howe | Bobby Hull | Jim "Catfish" Hunter | Julio Igelesias | Hale Irwin | Dan Jansen | Bruce Jenner | Jimmy Johnson | Michael Johnson | Rafer Johnson | K. C. Jones | Roy Jones, Jr. | Tommy Lee Jones | Michael Jordan | Florence Griffith Joyner | Jackie Joyner-Kersee | Beverly Kearney | Jim Kelly | David Kiley | Bernard King | Billie Jean King | Roger King | Franz Klammer | Olga Korbut | Julie Krone | Mike Krzyzewski | Guy Lafleur | Pat LaFontaine | Tom Landry | Bob Lanier | Tommy Lasorda | Rod Laver | Greg LeMond | Mario Lemieux | Sugar Ray Leonard | Marv Levy | Carl Lewis | Lennox Lewis | Nancy Lopez | Greg Louganis | Jerry Lucas | John Madden | Phil Mahre | Mickey Mantle | Dan Marino | John McEnroe | Frank McGuire | Rick Mears | Stan Mikita | Johnny Miller | Earl "The Pearl" Monroe | Joe Montana | Archie Moore | Edwin Moses | Stan Musial | Joe Namath | Martina Navritalova | Cam Neely | Craig H. Neilsen | NFL Hall of Fame Class 2001 | Jack Nicklaus | Greg Norman | Ken Norton | Dan O'Brien | Al Oerter | Bobby Orr | Jim Palmer | Bill Parcells | Robert Parish | Ara Parseghian | Benny Parsons | Floyd Patterson | Walter Payton | Willie Pep | Roger Penske | Richard Petty |Laffit Pincay, Jr. | Denis Potvin | Don Prudhomme | Bobby Rahal | Mike Richter | Pat Riley | Cal Ripken, Jr. | Phil Rizzuto | Oscar Robertson | Brooks Robinson | David Robinson | Chi Chi Rodriguez | Wilma Rudolph | Johnny Rutherford | Jim Ryun | Barry Sanders | Gale Sayers | Mike Schmidt | General H. Norman Schwarzkopf | Tom Seaver | Willie Shoemaker | Don Shula | Charlie Sifford | Dean Smith | Ozzie Smith | Stan Smith | Sam Snead | Randy Snow | Bart Starr | Roger Staubach | Curtis Strange | Picabo Street | Danny Sullivan | Pat Summerall | Hal Sutton | Lawrence Taylor | Isiah Thomas | Jenny Thompson | John Thompson | Tony Trabert | Bryan Trottier | Ron Turcotte and Secretariat | Johnny Unitas | Al Unser, Jr. | Al Unser, Sr. | John Vanbiesbrouck | Ken Venturi | Dick Vermeil | Francis T. Vincent, Jr. | Virginia Wade | Bill Walsh | Bill Walton | Darrell Waltrip | Lenny Wilkens | Ralph Wilson | Katarina Witt | Kristi Yamaguchi | Cale Yarborough
History
In 1985, Barth A. Green, M.D. and NFL Hall of Fame linebacker Nick Buoniconti helped found The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis after Nick's son, Marc, sustained a spinal cord injury during a college football game. Today, The Miami Project is the world's largest, most comprehensive spinal cord injury research center based at the University of Miami School of Medicine. The Miami Project's international team of scientists and clinicians take innovative approaches to the challenge of spinal cord injury. Committed to finding a cure for paralysis resulting from spinal cord injury and to seeing millions worldwide walk again, the Buoniconti family established The Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis in 1992, a non-profit organization devoted to assisting The Miami Project achieve its national and international goals. The Buoniconti Fund serves as the national fundraising arm of The Miami Project. It is designed to complement the scientific accomplishments of The Miami Project by generating funds and high levels of awareness.
Our Defining Moment!
Every person, organization, community, and cause have their defining moments – a time when everything they worked towards comes together and great progress, promise and success is made. The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis’ defining moment is upon us. Years in the making filled with unprecedented scientific triumphs and now, we are embarking in a HUMAN CLINICAL TRIALS INITIATIVE. What a medical achievement this is!!
For twenty-two years, The Miami Project, based at the Lois Pope LIFE Center, has been making incredible advances in cutting-edge research; improving the lives of those paralyzed by spinal cord injury. The Project is the largest, most comprehensive spinal cord injury research center in the world, employing over 200 top scientists and technicians with a budget of almost $20 million a year.
Our scientists hail from all over the world achieving expertise in the research and clinical rehabilitative laboratories in every facet of spinal cord injury research. Now their expertise and successful scientific strategies will be applied to humans with ACUTE AND CHRONIC spinal cord injuries. The lives and hopes of millions of people will change when this initiative commences. Medical history will be re-written and resonate around the world.
This is also YOUR defining moment – a moment when your hard work and dream for others’ well-being becomes solidified. It is a life defining moment for my son Marc and millions of others who have been confined to wheelchairs. A bittersweet moment for those of us whose loved ones have suffered for so long. A gratifying moment for University of Miami President Donna Shalala and Pascal F. Goldschmidt, M.D., University of Miami Dean of the Miller School of Medicine, whose standard of excellence and level of support has been nothing short of remarkable. A proud moment for renowned neurosurgeon Barth A. Green, M.D., Co-Founder and President of The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, and W. Dalton Dietrich, Ph.D., Miami Project Scientific Director, the exceptional Buoniconti Fund Board of Directors, the scientific researchers, valued donors, selfless volunteers and support staff who have worked effectively and tirelessly. It is our obsession to cure paralysis and help those in wheelchairs to stand again - THIS WILL BE OUR DEFINING MOMENT.
Nicholas A. Buoniconti
Co-Founder, The Miami Project
The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis
The Miami Project’s major goal has always been to improve function and quality of life for people paralyzed by spinal cord disorders. Our small army of scientists and clinicians are focused on taking our laboratory research into the trauma centers and hospitals across the USA and around the world. We have entered the exciting phase of translational research – the phase where basic research findings are carefully transformed into clinical treatments that can be tested on humans in clinical trials.
The Miami Project has pioneered interventions that are now being prepared for clinical trial. We are conducting critical pre-clinical tests and are proceeding according to FDA guidelines to gain approval to conduct a Phase I clinical trial in individuals with spinal cord injury. We continue to develop clinically relevant outcome measures as well as rehabilitative strategies to assist in these early clinical trials. Because of our research findings, human studies have already been initiated to examine the use of modest hypothermia (mild body cooling) for neuroprotection during delicate spinal cord surgeries and in the treatment of acute spinal cord and brain injuries.
Our basic science research team has developed cutting-edge experimental technologies to screen large numbers of compounds to find those that might be critical for neuroprotection and repair of the nervous system. Their work is identifying exciting therapeutic targets that were previously unknown. Our clinical research laboratories have also made new discoveries about the ability of the brain and spinal cord to reorganize. New rehabilitation strategies are being tested to enhance this reorganization. Clinical protocols targeting children with spinal cord injury are also now being advanced. These basic and clinical investigations are positioning us in an ideal situation to initiate exciting clinical studies.
We sense the momentum. Our research tem and their numerous collaborators across the U.S. and around the world are moving the field of neuroscience forward so we can speak realistically about clinical trials. We are proud of the accomplishments – accomplishments that offer optimism and hope, and we are truly convinced, as we often say, “it is not a matter of if, but a matter of when.”
Barth A. Green, M.D. W. Dalton Dietrich, Ph.D.
President Scientific Director
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2007 Dinner Chair
Mark F. Dalton
Tudor Investment Corporation
Committee Members
Pennie and Gary Abramson
Richard S. Aldrich
Ron Anderson
Louis F. Bantle
Robert C. Bantle
Richard R. Booth
Ina Broeman
Marc A. Buoniconti
Nicholas A. Buoniconti
Jack Callahan
Raymond G. Chambers
Gloria Estefan
Chris Evert
Vincent Farrell, Jr.
Emerson Fittipaldi
John B. Gray, Jr.
Barth A. Green, M.D.
John Hess
Julio Iglesias
John W. Jordan, II
Gerard Kelly
Christine E. Lynn
James Pallotta
John A. Schneider
Edward T. Tokar
Nicholas J. Verbitsky
Robert C. Wright
Gene Zuriff
For ticket and table purchase information, please contact Stephanie Sayfie Aagaard at (305) 243-4656 or click here to download the Great Sports Legends Dinner Reservation Form.
For more information about the research ongoing at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, click here.
The Buoniconti Fund
to Cure Paralysis
Post Office Box 016960 (R-48)
Miami, FL 33101-6960
Telephone: (305) 243-6001
Facsimile: (305) 243-6017
www.thebuonicontifund.com
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