ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: CHRIS BONIOL

By: Elizabeth D.

Chris Boniol stands on the ASH football field every Sunday afternoon with Daniel Tomlin and Rick Ducote, where they helped Boniol begin his kicking career. His teammates would invest their time to contribute to Boniol’s success at a young age, which led him to many opportunities in the future.

“Boniol worked so hard each and every day, and Daniel and I both knew that he could do whatever he set his mind to,” Rick Ducote, Rapides Parish Assessor, said. “Not only his determination and work ethic, but also believing himself and then proving it to other people has gotten him where he is today.” “My opportunity had to start somewhere and my teammates were people who devoted their time to my development,” Boniol said as he looked back on all the Sunday afternoons spent on the football field with Tomlin and Ducote. Boniol’s mother, Linda, taught Biology and his father, Don, coached the baseball team, all at Alexandria Senior High School. Mr. Boniol’s contribution to the baseball team was such an impact that the baseball field is set to be named in his honor this March. While attending ASH, Boniol started off as a receiver on the football team. He then shifted gears and began working to become a kicker instead.

Boniol would kick for ASH on Friday nights, and during the spring, he would catch for the baseball team. After graduating from ASH, he played for Louisiana Tech. Following his time as a collegiate player, he joined the Dallas Cowboys.

“It was only my second year on the team, and we went to the Superbowl,” Boniol says.

Following his time as a kicker for the Cowboys, Boniol played for the Philadelphia Eagles, Cleveland Browns, and the Chicago Bears.

He has coached for the Dallas Cowboys, Oakland Raiders, Louisiana College, Mississippi State, and currently for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

On top of coaching, Boniol had a business for roughly fifteen years where he coached kickers and punters in Texas.

All of this experience informs his coaching strategies.

“I think I have intuition for what a player is going through or what he might need at a particular moment,” Boniol says. As a coach, Boniol knows what his players need at that moment because of his years of teaching, coaching, and kicking as a player himself. “My players have the potential to be perfect in what they do,” Boniol says as he describes his mindset as a coach. “My expectations are: complete focus, complete dedication, complete professionalism, complete investment in every single day in trying to be prepared in playing a game on the weekend.” As Boniol will coach in the Super Bowl February 7, he is approaching it as any other game he has this year because “the Super Bowl is no more important than any other game this season,” he says. “There is a peace knowing that we have worked extremely hard and have done the best that we can do to get where we are at now.” “His hardwork and dedication has paid off,” Daniel Tomlin, ASH teacher and coach, says as he reminisces about his lifelong friendship with Boniol. After playing in and winning a Super Bowl in 1996, then coaching one 25 years later, this “full circle” moment for Boniol is one that is earned.

Boniol kicks for the Trojans.

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Image credit: Fox sports

Both of Boniol's parents taught at ASH.

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