Inspirational! Yes, YOU CAN!

[Christopher]

A buddy of mine just emailed me this story and link to a video on these two. I've just spent the last half hour in tears reading their website testimonials of people's life changing responses from learning about "Team Hoyt".

Amazingly impressive stuff!
Truly humbling and inspiring!
Much needed anti-depressant...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuRPxDgzU58&NR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D52rJd9GX10

http://www.teamhoyt.com/inspired_1.shtml
http://www.teamhoyt.com/atta_boy.shtml
http://www.teamhoyt.com/atta_boy_06.shtml


Father and Son Team Inspire One Another

Let’s talk about the real heroes

The June 20, 2005 issue of Sports Illustrated reveals an inspirational story about a father and his son living with a disability. The story is about Dick Hoyt and his son Rick. Eighty-five times Dick has pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times Dick not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars -- all in the same day. Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike.

This story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. "He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life," Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. "Put him in an institution." But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. "No way," Dick says he was told. "There's nothing going on in his brain." "Tell him a joke," Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!"

After a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that." Yeah, right . How was Dick, a self-described "porker" who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. "Then it was me who was handicapped," Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks." That day changed Rick's life. "Dad," he typed, "when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!" And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

"No way," Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, and then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year. Then somebody said, "Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?" How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried. Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? "No way," he says. Dick does it purely for "the awesome feeling" he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together. This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992 -- only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.


About Abilities Buzz

ABILITIES BUZZ is sponsored by Advanstar Communications, producers of Abilities Expo. We encourage our readers to submit information on news and articles of interest that can be shared within the industry. Send story ideas to Amy Riemer at amy@riemercommunications.com . Our goal is to keep you abreast of the latest news being reported in the industry to improve the lives of people with disabilities, senior citizens, their families and caregivers – as well as healthcare and education professionals.


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All of this was copied from the July 2005 issue of Abilities Buzz.

[marieke]

Yes, truly inspirational. I saw them on TV a while back, amazed me then and still does!
Marieke