Dick and Rick Hoyt

[wong_watkins 1]

My former high school teacher sent me this, it is an article and video about a courageous story of a father and his son. I'm sure some of you have already heard about their story but I thought this was so great I have to share. The video teared me up..I don't remember when was the last time my heart was touched...

From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to

pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with ####### Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in

marathons. Eight times he's 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.

#######'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.

Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his

life.

This love 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,'' ####### 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,'' ####### says he was

told. ``There's nothing going on in his brain.''

"Tell him a joke,'' ####### 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!'' And 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 #######, 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,''

####### 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 #######'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,'' ####### 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 ####### and Rick just joined the massive

field and ran anyway, 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, #######, 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, ####### tried.

Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour

stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't

you think?

Hey, #######, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he

says. ####### 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, ####### 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.

``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the

Century.''

And ####### got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he

had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of

his arteries was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great

shape,'' one doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years

ago.''

So, in a way, ####### and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in

Boston, and #######, retired from the military and living in Holland,

Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around

the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend,

including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really

wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the

chair and I push him once.''

The Video --- ####### and Rick Hoyt

Edited April 21, 2007 by wong_watkins

[MichelleandCraig 1]

I saw them on Oprah some months ago...it was *very, very* moving. M.

[Emancipation 2]

The video kills me.. SUCH a powerful story of Father's Love.