Football
Favorite athlete: My favorite athlete would definitely be Lionel Messi. Growing up, Messi showed me that no matter how undersized you are, if you put the effort in you can succeed.
Favorite team: The Philadelphia Eagles.
Favorite memory competing in sports: My favorite memory in sports is when I scored my first high school touchdown against Jenkintown this season.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Watching our whole coaching staff hit the griddy after we beat Jenkintown for our first win this season.
Music on Playlist: Bruno Mars, NLE Choppa, Rod Wave, and Lil Uzi.
Future plans: I plan to go to college, majoring in Sports Medicine.
Words to live by: Everything happens for a reason.
One goal before turning 30: Finishing college and getting an ideal job.
One thing people don’t know about me: I can hit a nice “Dougie.”
By GORDON GLANTZ
“From small things, big things one day come.”
--Bruce Springsteen
First-year Lower Moreland football coach Dominic Gregorio has both short- and long-term goals for his program.
Although the Lions are coming off a 14-8 win over Vaux Big Picture High to raise their mark to 2-3, Gregorio is envisioning a time when wins come so regularly that they are expected.
Hired in the summer, he is putting a culture in place piecemeal. An owner/operator of a roofing company, the metaphor is not lost on him.
“I was hired really, really late,” said Gregorio, formerly the head coach at the George School who was assistant at Abington and his alma mater, the former Bishop McDevitt. “I didn’t get hired until late July. It’s going. We’re just trying to set a culture now. It’s really hard to develop kids during the season. You have to develop them during the offseason. Right now, we’re trying to do both while trying to win some games.”
With a new high school being built, the hope is to build a football skyscraper, beginning with a foundation that starts with the likes of senior quarterback/captain Ryan Buoni.
“Ryan is a great kid,” said Gregorio. “He is a great leader. I’ve only known him for about seven weeks. That being said, this kid passes all the tests as a leader.
“He’s a good student. He’s respected by his teammates, respected by people in the building and by the administration. When you’ve passed all those tests, you’ve got to be a pretty good person.
“I’d loved to have had four years of this kid.”
When Gregorio noticed that Buoni needed to step up and be a leader in a difficult situation, the message was well-received and the challenge was met.
“He expresses it to me very frequently,” said Buoni. “He is very open that he wants to build a culture. He wants me, and the other seniors, to be the foundation of that.
“He puts it in my hands very heavily. He wants me to keep this team together and focused, so that we can become a winning program. He really wants this season to be a foundation.”
Overcoming Adversity
Buoni’s maturity may also have to do with growing up fast after dealing with the tragedy of losing his mother, Christine Buoni, suddenly to a blood clot in her heart this past Jan. 27.
“I lost my dad at 23, and I know how much it affected me,” said Gregorio. “I can’t imagine losing your mother at 17, but he has fought through adversity with that.”
The ongoing battle, according to Buoni, has been a slow and steady one.
“It was rough,” he reflected. “It happened in the winter. Football was over. It wasn’t the warmest weather outside, so I kind of bottled myself up inside for the first couple of months.
“I used the gym, honestly. That is where I built a stronger connection with the gym. It was a place where I could work hard and just mold myself into a better person. It also helped me get stronger for the next football season.”
While the death was unexpected, Buoni took solace in the fact that he had evolved into a true student-athlete while his mother got to see it.
“She loved how well I was doing in school,” he said. “I had just started to become a serious student. My freshman year was COVID, so it was a struggle. Educationally-wise, I just wasn’t the best student. I didn’t adapt at all to online. Sophomore year, was just an ‘eh’ year. But, last year, I was a B to A-minus student, and that’s something she was real proud about right before she passed. Just knowing it was something that she was proud about was a big thing that kept me going.”
While he only missed around three days of school after his mother’s passing, Buoni used that long and lonely winter to try and attach some meaning to it.
He has recently learned to repeat the mantra of “everything happens for a reason” to himself.
“Ever since I lost my mom, it was a way to encourage myself,” he explained. “I’m here for a reason. I can’t put myself down. I have to keep going. Obviously, this obstacle is my life is here, but I can mentally strengthen myself and keep myself going.”
Little Big Man
It is interesting to note that while Gregorio estimated his quarterback to be around 5-9 and 175 pounds, Buoni admitted that he is a bit smaller (5-8, 165).
It is an easy mistake to make.
He plays big – so big, in fact, that he was stationed at fullback and defensive end before settling at quarterback.
Buoni relished all chances to get on the field, but he sees signal caller as a bit of a dream job. He thrives on being at the epicenter of the offense.
“I love it,” said Buoni, who played youth soccer instead of football before high school. “It’s something I knew I always had an interest in when I was younger, but we didn’t have a middle school program and my parents didn’t let me play Pee Wee football. They thought I was too small and figured I would get hurt.
“But, at recess, we always played football. We played flag football. We played tackle football. I was always the quarterback because I could throw farther than most of the other kids. So, I always felt like I could be a quarterback. I also feel like I’m a leader. I love to take charge and make sure that things are going right.”
Leader by example? Vocal leader?
Buoni sees himself as a bit of both.
“I’d say it is as a leader by example the most because the vocal part of it has only really been in these last two years,” he said. “I really only started to get playing time the last two years.”
It was his size, or lack thereof, that prevented him from playing any organized football – other than at recess in elementary school, where tackle football was banned – until he got to high school.
While part of that was because his parents, particularly his mother, thought he was too small, the other part was the middle school doesn’t have a program (something Gregorio seeks to change).
“She was very iffy about my freshman year, but saw that I got a little bit bigger,” said Buoni, who thanked his father, Joseph, for encouraging him to play the sport he also played and his grandparents (Barbara and Richard Good) for their ongoing support. “She was not iffy about it anymore last year. When I got an opportunity to play, I was fine. She got more comfortable with it. Then, during my junior year, she was like, ‘Wow, he loves to play football. I’ll support anything he wants to do.’”
Future Plans
Buoni, who participated in MiniThon and Unified Track, is not sure what college he will attend but is clear on two points:
- His football career will again be reduced to pickup games.
- He will likely stay local and may major in something related to sports, such as sports medicine.
“I was lost for a while,” he said. “I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. But, I also knew that with my passion for football and with my recent connection in the gym, I wanted to go into sports medicine or something related to sports.”
Speaking of which, there might be another vocation that would be a natural fit.
“I asked him about coaching,” said Gregorio. “He can come back to help do that at Lower Moreland – any time, any day – because he is the type of person I would want to be part of the program.
“He’s a tough, blue-collar type of kid. He has the work ethic that goes with it. I have one son and five daughters. This is a kid where you’d say, ‘I’d love for him to be my son or for him to marry one of my daughters.’”
Added Buoni, who set a javelin record as a freshman and may come back to track as a senior this spring: “Yeah, I have thought about (coaching). I have thought, especially in the past year, that it would be cool to come back to Lower Moreland and coach in the future. That was also heavily put in my mind by my last head coach, Justin Beck. The love he had for the game, and the joy he got from coaching us, really sparked that interest. I would be really cool to come back to where I first gained that love for football and then coach other kids and show them that determination and that love as well.”
