I'm not one to usually get in to this kind of stuff, but this was touching. If the video doesn't jerk a tear, you have no pulse. Next time you think you are a tough guy, think of this man, Dick Hoyt. Be sure to watch the video at the end.
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 has 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 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, 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 sit in the chair
> and I push him once.''
>
> Here's the video.... please watch it...
>
>
YouTube - (Can ) Father-son bond of Dick and Rick Hoyt
>
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