Tim Buffone (2024) - IUP Athletic Hall of Fame - Indiana University of Pennsylvania Athletics

IUP Athletic Hall of Fame

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Tim Buffone

Class

2002
Induction

2024
Sport(s)

Football

Tim Buffone gained a fair share of accolades as an immovable object along the defensive line during his days as a member of the IUP football team.

Buffone earned first-team All-PSAC honors in each of his last three seasons, and as a junior and senior was named a Daktronics Northeast Region and ECAC South first-team all-star. He was accorded honorable mention on the Don Hansen and D2football.com All-America teams.

Buffone served as a defensive team captain as a junior and senior and was voted the team’s most inspirational player on three occasions.

Coach Frank Cignetti’s Indians, as they were then known, qualified for the NCAA Division II playoffs in each of Buffone’s four seasons in uniform and captured PSAC West titles in 2000 and 2001. IUP teams compiled a 35-11 record during his career, highlighted by a 10-2 season his freshman year.

After graduation, Buffone spent two seasons playing professionally for the Wheeling, W.Va.-based Ohio Valley Greyhounds of the National Indoor Football League. He earned first-team All-NIFL honors on the defensive line both years.

The Shannock Valley High School graduate has also made a name for himself as a wrestler. He was a USA Wrestling Veterans Division Greco-Roman silver medalist in the 130-kilogram class at Las Vegas earlier this year.

Buffone, who earned an IUP degree in geography in 2002, works as a senior associate geospatial technologist for DRT Strategies, based in Arlington, Va. He is also the head wrestling coach and an assistant football coach at West Shamokin High School in Rural Valley.

Buffone and his wife, Darcie, a 2002 IUP grad, reside in Kittanning. They have two children, Rocko, 16, and Cruz, 13.

Personal Reflection:

I would like to thank Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, for my many blessings and talents that He has provided me.

I would like to thank my family and friends for supporting me 20-plus years ago, as well as those who are standing by me today. Thank you to this great university for giving me the privilege to play a game I loved so much, as well as providing me with an education that has served me well as a professional. A special thanks to the geography department for mentoring a young man who had no clue what he wanted to do other than play football.

I am blessed, humbled and honored to be considered for this great honor, and I would like to think that I represent several great athletes that I played beside that helped give me this opportunity. I am forever grateful to my family, friends, teammates, coaches, professors and, most of all, my God. Talons UP!

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