Drew Boniface may be sidelined, but he's still inspiring to John Jay's football team

Drew Boniface heads out to the coin toss with team captains for the John Jay football season opener. JIM MACLEAN PHOTO

By Jim MacLean

Perspective is personal. A thousand of us can witness a high school football game and we all see it differently through our own eyes and our own personal point of view.

Most of us are spectators, fans in the crowd cheering for the players. Some of those fans are parents, and watching their child enjoy the thrill of victory or suffer the agony of defeat is a much more personal perspective.

Only a select few are the actual participants, the ones willing to be on the playing field. Only they know what it took to get out there and make those plays.

And then there is Drew Boniface.

The John Jay senior was always out on the field. He knows what it feels like to be in the center of the action, and he would give anything to be out there once again. Only now he can’t. He has a different view from the sideline, one he did not ask for, one that none of us would want, and only he can fully understand from his unique point of view what it means to have the opportunity to compete in a high school football game.

“Making a big play, a big stop on defense, that’s such a great feeling and I still get that feeling watching everyone else play from the sideline,” Boniface said. “I still have the same competitive mindset. I’m on the sideline, but I get so hyped and into the game and feel like I’m ready to go out there and make a play. That feeling has never left. I have the same fire.”

What left was his ability to be on the field, taken away in a split second. Boniface was looking forward to a promising football career at John Jay. He was a starter on defense at cornerback as a sophomore for the John Jay varsity team. Only the best athletes make the varsity as a sophomore, and only a select few are starters out on the field. He was projected to be a two-way starter as a junior, but he would never make it back onto the field.

Ski slope catastrophe

On a ski trip to Vermont on March 1, 2025, with some friends — including a couple of football teammates from John Jay — Boniface landed off a jump and never got up, paralyzed from the waist down. His high school football career was over and his life was changed.

“You can be doing something so basic and then your next step something can happen that alters your life,” he said. 

“I was skiing with some buddies up at Mount Snow when it happened,” he recounted. “I knew right away when I landed that my circumstances had changed physically in an instant.”

John Jay senior captain Steven Almstead was one of the friends with Boniface on the ski trip. The two have been teammates and friends for most of their lives, practicing and working out and playing sports and going away on ski trips together.

Almstead knew what kind of athlete Boniface was, and how much of a loss it would be for the John Jay football team, but most of all he was devastated to see what had happened to his friend on that ill-fated ski trip.

“He was something special, he was really good, much better than me. If he was playing today, he’d definitely be one of the best players on our team,” Almstead said of Boniface.

 “We’ve been friends for such a long time,” he added, “started playing lacrosse together in first grade and football in third grade, and I was right there with him on the jump on the ski trip. I saw the whole thing. That was rough. We knew there was something wrong when he didn’t get up. That was so tough seeing my friend in that situation.”

In one split second his football playing days were over, but the rest of his life had just begun.

A hard road to recovery

He would face a long hard road ahead. It had already been a rough year for Boniface and his family, as his dad had passed away from cancer less than a year before the accident. Two devastating, life-changing ordeals for Drew, his mother and older brother and sister to deal with in a short time, enough to crush a teenager and his family, but they would struggle through and somehow they managed to survive one step at a time.

“My family has been incredible, they’ve been with me 100% every step of the way,” he said. “They help me with everything, and they are always there. I can’t even put into words how helpful they have been and how much they mean to me. I wouldn’t be able to do this without them. For my mom, it’s a ton of driving taking me to therapy, to football, to school, and I don’t know how she does it. I made her get up at 5 a.m. to drive me to football practice. She did it and I can’t believe she has put up with me. She knew what it meant to me and she’s been great. She is amazing.”

The long road back started with four months in a hospital in Atlanta after the accident having his initial surgeries. Since then he has been in and out of hospitals and doctors and therapy offices. It started out seven hours a day five days a week and two more months back in the hospital, and he continues to do therapy every day.

It gives him hope to see and feel the progress he has made with surgery and therapy. He believes that someday the medical industry will help find other ways to help him and other paraplegics.

“Therapy itself is hours and hours, and it’s been super helpful,” he said. “There have already been changes in the industry and they keep coming, and there could be crazy changes in the future. For right now,  I’m just focusing on therapy and strengthening myself to do the best I can.”

In the hospital starting his long road back to recovery as best as he could and starting his life over, Boniface knew there was something else he needed; he was determined to keep the sport of football and his teammates in his life.

His mother and the John Jay coaches and athletic administration worked it out so he could be there on the sideline and at practice with his team. 

‘I want to get back to football’

“My first thought when I was in the hospital the day after my surgery was that I want to get back to football,” Boniface said. “From the start, I knew I still wanted to be on the sideline and still be at practice to help my team. The day after I got back from rehab in the hospital, I went to our 6 a.m. practice and I still haven’t really missed one since. It’s what I enjoy, what I want to do, and I didn’t want this to stop me from doing that.”

“It was so great to get back and see all my friends, my teammates,” he continued. “Everyone on this team I consider my closest friends in my whole life and I’m super grateful that they have been with me the whole way.”

That feeling is mutual for him, his teammates and everyone who has had the chance to get to know him.

John Jay head coach Brendan Connolly just started with the Wolves this season and has only known Boniface for a few months, but he fully understands what it means to have him on the sideline.

“He’s just a tremendous human being, what he brings to our program on a day-to-day basis just by showing up. He doesn’t use excuses, he’s here no matter what every single day,” Connolly said. “He will be a good coach someday if he wants to because he sees things very well from the sideline.” The coach described him as “cerebral, intelligent, funny, just a great person to have around your program, and he’s such an inspiration. The other kids know he would give anything to be out there and have this opportunity.” He said the players recognize that “this is finite, we have three weeks left and the season is over, and you have to make the most of the opportunity because you have no idea when something can be taken away from you.”

Talk to Almstead or other members of the team and you will find that message was clear to the Wolves. He inspires them to make the most of the opportunity to step on the football field every single day.

‘He has made the team better’

“He’s still Drew, nothing’s changed — the same witty jokes, same sarcasm — he hasn’t changed and that’s why I love him,” said Almstead. “He has been through so much and he still brings the same good attitude to the team, and it makes us work harder and he has made the team better. It’s definitely made me more grateful for just being able to come out here and play football. He’s made me more grateful for everything.”

That message is the same for football or any other high school sport. You work hard, and you have wins and losses, and you learn from them both. It’s basically true for life.

As the season draws to a close, Boniface has the same feelings as his teammates and athletes everywhere as they finish up their high school athletic careers.

“In my case it was in an instant, and it definitely comes to an end quicker than you expect and you have to enjoy every minute of it,” Boniface said of high school sports. “Stay in the moment; there will be setbacks and challenges that come with sports and you have to be able to get knocked down and get back up. You have to be willing to fail to succeed. The losses lead to wins and you remember them both. Sports lessons are life lessons, and you are going to have failures and you have to keep working.”

Down but not out

Boniface has certainly been knocked down and faced some tough lessons, but he has not been knocked out. He has the same goals that he had entering high school, and just like other seniors, he is now  applying to colleges. He plans to study business, with possible connections to the sports world in brand management, recruiting or marketing.

“I’m still me, how I do things might be different, but not who I am and how I think,” he said, “My mindset has never changed. It hasn’t stopped me, my goals are still the same, I want to be on the sideline with my team, I want to hang out with friends, I want to do well in school, I want to go to college and live on campus.”

“The only way to get to the other side of something is to work through it, that’s true in my situation and in all aspects of life, and you have to make the best of it.”