The night was Oct. 1, 1986. The site, the Waldorf Astoria hotel. The event, the inaugural Greatest Sports Legends Dinner to support the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.

Less than a year earlier on Oct. 26, 1985, a football player for The Citadel with a familiar last name, Marc Buoniconti, was paralyzed while trying to make a tackle in a game against East Tennessee State.

Buoniconti suffered a dislocation of the C3 and C4 vertebrae, and a severe spinal cord injury which would leave him paralyzed from the shoulders down.

He would have vertebrae fusion surgery to stabilize his neck and begin his lifelong rehabilitation, which included learning to breath without a ventilator and master a breath-controlled wheelchair.

Marc’s famous father, Nick Buoniconti — the Hall-of-Fame linebacker for the Boston Patriots and Miami Dolphins, and iconic co-host of HBO’s “Inside the NFL” — quickly sprung into action. By the end of 1985 he cofounded the Miami Project with neurosurgeon and spinal cord injury expert Dr. Barth A. Green.

The Greatest Sports Legends Dinner became the organization’s biggest platform for raising awareness and money for research into the mysteries of spinal cord injury. It was no coincidence that the first gathering honored “The Greatest” — Muhammad Ali.

“I had the privilege of knowing [Muhammad] for quite some time,” Marc Buoniconti told The Post. “ We’d been friendly even before the dinner. My dad was friends with [Ali’s trainer] Angelo Dundee, so we made that connection early on. It was a natural fit for him to be one of the first people that we honored.”

Photos from the evening show Ali talking with Marc and Nick Buoniconti, President Nixon, Joe Namath and Bob Cousy.

“What an amazing guy, so personable, so friendly,” Marc recalled. “He was super excited to be a part of it, and really helped to put the Buoniconti family and the Miami Project on the map as far as bringing attention to our cause.”

On Monday night at the Hilton in Midtown, an organization created out of the devotion of father to son will honor its first father-daughter combination. Undefeated boxing champion Laila Ali will be one of the award recipients — along with Shane Battier, Chris Webber, Rob Gronkowski, Andruw Jones, Shaun White and others.

“I’ve worked very hard to establish my own identity, create my own path, but I will always be proud to be my father’s daughter,” Laila Ali told The Post. “Now, to be the only father-daughter combination to receive this honor 40 years apart is something I definitely don’t take lightly.

“[Our journeys are] very different and our legacies stand on their own, but we both have that shared commitment of excellence. So being able to use my platform and make a difference, it feels like a beautiful place to be where those two legacies meet.”

The connection to the Miami Project and Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis is important to Laila Ali. Muhammad Ali famously suffered from Parkinson’s disease. In addition to spinal injuries, the organization conducts clinical research into neurological diseases and disorders including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS, multiple sclerosis and CTE.

Laila Ali was 24-0 with 21 knockouts and five world championships in a career that spanned from 1999-2007. Her opponents clearly were in bigger danger than she was, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t suffer damage. She says an examination by renowned neurologist Dr. Daniel Amen, who earlier worked with her father, revealed “concussions I didn’t even know I had.”

“There’s so much that happens in the gym, not in the fight. I haven’t lost a fight, I’m undefeated, but I was sparring with men for years,” Ali recounted. “And sparring, you’re doing ‘x’ amount of times per week, going 10 rounds with guys who may be stronger than you. And it doesn’t really matter how strong you are, just getting hit in the head isn’t a good thing.”

Now 48, Laila Ali lives in the Atlanta area with her husband, former Bears and Jets wide receiver Curtis Conway, 18-year-old son Curtis Jr. and 15-year-old daughter Sydney. Curtis Jr., who bears a striking resemblance to grandfather Muhammad, plays high school and travel baseball. Laila says Sydney is athletic but is not interested in competition in sports.

“So that has been a challenge for us because we are so competitive,” Laila said. “But we’ve never pressured our children that they need to play sports to become athletes for a living. It’s because it’s what you get from sports, the discipline and the character that it builds. She did play sports up until age 14 and she got to decide. She’s more of an artist.”

Laila says she has never been a football follower and didn’t know Curtis Conway was a football player when she met him. She adds the duo didn’t specifically dissuade their children from playing violent sports, though that didn’t end up happening.

“I would not prevent them from doing it if that’s what they wanted to do, the same way I wanted to,” she said. “I think with all athletes, we know the dangers of our sports, right? We know the danger of football. We know the danger of boxing. It’s pretty obvious to me — you keep getting hit in the head and you’re going to have some issues.”

Laila recently wrote her first children’s book, “A Spark of Greatness: The Autobiography of a Fighter.”

“I wrote it for 4-8-year-olds, and it’s a story about my journey in boxing, and specifically as Muhammad Ali’s daughter and what came along with that — the hard work, dedication and discipline that it took. The little nuggets in the book are the confidence I had in myself, the courage, keeping curiosity alive, building character.”

Tickets are still available for Monday night’s event at http://www.thebuonicontifund.com/gsld41 or by calling 305-243-4656.