St. Mary’s High School to honor Bice

Bill San Antonio

Frank Bice has spent most of his life around St. Mary’s parish.

He and his four siblings attended St. Mary’s Elementary School. He taught religious education within the parish as a young man. 

And when a freak football injury left Bice a quadriplegic, the St. Mary’s community rallied to help make his Strathmore home wheelchair accessible and raised money for the van he now drives around Manhasset. 

At next month’s Don Monti Memorial Golf Classic and Fall Alumni Dinner, St. Mary’s High School will honor Bice, who was ordained a deacon in 2005, with the Timothy J. Coughlin Memorial Award for Outstanding Contributions to St. Mary’s High School. 

Coughlin, a childhood friend of Bice’s, worked as a bond broker at the World Trade Center and died in the September 11 attacks.

“It’s a real honor for me because I grew up with Tim,” said Bice, 54. “He was possibly the most successful bond broker in the world, so this is a real, real honor. I met Pope John Paul II three times, and every time I met him I saw Timmy in his eyes. They each had that kind of intensity. Timmy had a spirit to him that was just contagious.”

Bice was a standout athlete in basketball, football and lacrosse growing up in Manhasset, 

He went on to boarding school at New England’s Cranwell Preparatory School in Lenox, Mass. and then to Canterbury School in New Milford, Conn. where he graduated in 1977.

At Siena College, Bice captained the football and lacrosse teams. He twice earned National Club Football Association All-America honors as a safety and the lacrosse team went undefeated in his sophomore season.

But during the third game of his senior season against St. John Fisher College, Bice went to make a tackle on a tight end who caught a short pass.

The result of the play, Bice said, was life-changing.

“I didn’t lift my head in time,” Bice said. “As soon as we hit the ground, I knew I had been paralyzed. It’s been almost 33 years now.”

The play left Bice a quadriplegic, requiring hospital treatment for eight months. Nurses would arrive at his bedside periodically throughout the day to turn him over.

During this time, Bice said he learned two lessons.

The first, he said, was to embrace a sense of humor about his situation, as friends would use his body to play pranks on nurses.

“One of my buddies put a fake hand in bed with me, and when the nurse came to turn me over it fell out,” Bice said. “She ran away screaming.”

The second lesson, Bice said, was to further develop his relationship with God.

Bice said a St. Mary’s priest would visit him daily and repeat the words, “Thank you Jesus” into his ear, which helped him “focus on being grateful in almost every situation.”  

“I prayed for the gift to say ‘yes,’” Bice said. “I made a deal with God that if I promised to live with a positive attitude, I’d do whatever he’d plan for me.”

Bice said the Manhasset community, particularly the St. Mary’s community, was instrumental in lifting his spirits and aiding in his recovery. 

“Friends and family were so supportive,” Bice said. “I learned to fall back on my faith, and people really helped make the transition a lot easier than it could have been. Timmy and his family were very supportive. They set up fundraisers to help me get my van and make my house more accessible for me.”

Bice spent 14 years as a Wall Street consultant, but earned two master’s degrees from the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington in theology and pastoral studies, and another from Yale Divinity School in religious studies.  On May 21, 2005, Bice was ordained a deacon at St. Agnes Cathedral in Rockville Centre. 

For the last two years, he has taught theology at Sacred Heart Academy and coached the all-girls school’s junior varsity lacrosse and freshman basketball teams. 

“Teaching and coaching have always been my true vocation,” Bice said. “I love doing it. It’s a perfect fit for me.”

In 2011, Bice’s book, “Your Cross Is Your Gift” was published, chronicling his journey as a quadriplegic, and he has a series of YouTube videos in which he analyzes scripture.

“My big thing is storytelling,” Bice said. “I really love it and I think it’s the best way to interpreting the gospel. That’s the method that’s worked best for me.”

Bice is also in the process of creating a 501(C)(3) organization that he said would support a variety of entities within the Catholic church.  

Bice plans to call his organization The Cranwell Foundation after his former high school, which is now the Cranwell Spa and Resort, and its emblem will feature the St. Ignatius Retreat House, which was recently sold by the Jesuit order to a developer.

“I loved Cranwell. It was the greatest school in the world and really helped me excel academically and athletically,” Bice said. “When they closed it, it made no sense to me. I couldn’t see how they could give that up, and I’m in the same place with St. Ignatius, but sometimes the best way to respond to death is by building new life, and I’m going to try to do that through the foundation.”

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