EVERYONE,

No matter what you do, take a minute to read this story, and then take four more minutes to view the video at the website. It will be the best five minutes you have spent in a long, long time.


Read this and then watch the video (the website link is at the end) You won’t be sorry.

Strongest Dad in the World

[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 Dick 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.

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. 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;'' 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!'' 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 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, 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.

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

And Dick got somethi ng 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, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston,
and Dick, 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 would sit in
the chair and I would push him once.''

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjPrL3n63yg

There are no words for that !!! Your right everyone needs to read and watch !!! :thumbsup:

1greenmahine, First let me say, Thank you for sharing that with us.



What a great story !



I work in the field with mentally challenged and physically handicapped people. We have a wide variety of Independence levels and we strive to make each individual learn and become as independent with living skills as we possibly can.



I am consistantly seeing the difference in clients who's parents are involved as opposed to those individuals who live in group homes, who's family's only consist of the other people in the home.



Each day is a challenge and some day's there isn't much progress to note, but then it happens, and a client may do something that you have been working with them on for months, there faces light up, and so does mine because for some of these people just lifting a fork to thier mouth can be the biggest accomplishment.



As a parent I feel Blessed that my children are healthy, active ,and were born " normal" but you never know when that may be wiped away in a split second. Without going into too much detail about a client I have, I just wanted to say that this man was perfectly normal until the age of 21 when he was hit by a truck, after months and months of rehabilitation, surgery's and recovery, this man will probably be in a wheelchair with significant brain damage for the rest of his life, BUT, his Dad ( God Bless him ) visits him at his group home every day to help feed him his dinner, and to make sure his son is getting the things and needs he deserves. When we go on field trips, this Dad goes with us everytime just to see his son happy. He's come a long way in the 8 years I have worked with him,at the age of 30 he now bares his own weight while standing for up to 10 minutes and he feeds his self, and can communicate with some words. He knows what he wants to do, he just can't make his brain make his body work. I will continue to do whatever I can to make my client's as independent as I can, and to show him that people still love him without being " perfect ".



Again, Thanks for sharing this story, It's not only a story of real love but it is also a wake up call for some of those who take "normal life" for granted.



Snow4

A truly very insperational SUPER DAD. As we all try to be the best parent we can be. We can only do what is expected of us, and that is to LOVE & SUPPORT our children. May God bless the people with speacial needs and those who are able to give it. :thumbsup:

Thanks i found it on a different website i was reading thru. I was all mad about how bad a week i was having and this put it in perspective.

I watched the ironmans they participated in and could not believe the determination and dedication he had.

ttt :D

I have seen team Hoyt on Oprah.. what an inspirational pair... Thank goodness his parents didn't listen to the "Doctors"...
I cried through the whole 4 minute video... I am grateful to have very healthy, happy boys... I think the Hoyts are truly super people and I would be honored to meet them...
thank you for sharing that..
sarah

Great one. My Dad passed away on July 31st of this year. I miss him so much. When my second daughter was born on August 11th I actually picked up the phone to call him, I was so excited I forgot. It wasn't until his answering maching kicked on I realized he was gone.

Great one. My Dad passed away on July 31st of this year. I miss him so much. When my second daughter was born on August 11th I actually picked up the phone to call him, I was so excited I forgot. It wasn't until his answering maching kicked on I realized he was gone.
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I'm sorry to hear that you lost your dad this past July. My condolinces to you and your family. And also congrats on the birth of your 2nd daughter. Snow Prowler.