Is there anything stronger than the love of a parent for a child? Team Hoyt would argue “no way”. Who is Team Hoyt? Just a father and son, Dick and Rick Hoyt. They compete together almost continuously in marathon races. When they’re not running marathons they are doing triathlons — the daunting, almost superhuman, combination of 26.2 miles of running, 112 miles of bicycling, and 2.4 miles of swimming. Together they have climbed mountains, and once trekked 3,735 miles across America.
So, what makes them so special? “Nothing” would most likely be their reply but if you saw them running, swimming, or biking you would beg to differ. You see, Rick can’t talk or walk. When Rick was born the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and cut off oxygen to his brain. While the doctors told his parents there was “no hope for their child’s development,” and that they “should just put him away — he’d be a vegetable all his life,” Dick and Judy Hoyt brought their son home and were “determined to raise him as ‘normally’ as possible.”
As Rick grew “the Hoy’ts were convinced Rick was just as intelligent as his siblings. Dick remembers the struggle to get the local school authorities to agree: "Because he couldn’t talk they thought he wouldn’t be able to understand, but that wasn’t true." The dedicated parents taught Rick the alphabet. "We always wanted Rick included in everything," Dick said. "That’s why we wanted to get him into public school."
A group of Tufts University engineers came to the rescue, once they had seen some clear, empirical evidence of Rick’s comprehension skills. "They told him a joke," said Dick. "Rick just cracked up. They knew then that he could communicate!" The engineers went on to build — using $5,000 the family managed to raise in 1972 - an interactive computer that would allow Rick to write out his thoughts using the slight head-movements that he could manage. Rick came to call it "my communicator." A cursor would move across a screen filled with rows of letters, and when the cursor highlighted a letter that Rick wanted, he would click a switch with the side of his head.
Rick told his father he wanted to participate in a five-mile benefit run for a local lacrosse player who had been paralyzed in an accident. Dick, far from being a long-distance runner, agreed to push Rick in his wheelchair. They finished next to last, but they felt they had achieved a triumph. That night, Dick remembers, "Rick told us he just didn’t feel handicapped when we were competing." Rick’s realization turned into a whole new set of horizons that opened up for him and his family, as "Team Hoyt" began to compete in more and more events.”
More events meant Dick would have to become a long-distance runner. When Team Hoyt began competing in triathlons Dick not only had to become a long-distance biker but he also had to learn how to swim. "I sank like a stone at first" Dick recalled with a laugh "and I hadn’t been on a bike since I was six years old."As they continue to compete nationally and around the world, Rick experiences success in other areas. He graduated from Boston University with a degree in special education and works at Boston College’s computer laboratory assisting in the development of “Eagle Eyes”, mechanical aides that can be controlled by the eye movements of a person who is paralyzed.
Team Hoyt’s message is simple, “Everybody should be included in everyday life.”
Thank you, Team Hoyt, for showing us 1 more way to Live in Love.
To view an inspirational video about Team Hoy, visit http://www.sermonspice.com/ Don't be surprised if you need a tissue.
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