rogerwa
Commander
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2000
- Messages
- 2,339
My wife sent me this link. I think I am a good father and I hope someday to be a 1000th of the hero to my kids that this man is..
[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. 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
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, ****, 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 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.''
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryCTIigaloQ
[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. 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
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, ****, 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 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.''
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryCTIigaloQ
