There’s a sentence that has crossed almost fifty years and reached millions of people, spoken by a young man who could only communicate through a computer: “Dad, when I’m running, it feels like I’m not handicapped.”
Rick Hoyt was born with cerebral palsy caused by birth asphyxia: the umbilical cord had wrapped around his neck, cutting off oxygen to his brain for several minutes. Doctors told his parents he would never be able to communicate or live a normal life. Instead, Rick learned to “speak” through a device that translated small head movements into words on a screen.
In 1977, a classmate of Rick’s was paralyzed in an accident. To support him, Rick asked his father Dick to push his wheelchair in a charity race. Dick, then nearly forty and with no running experience, agreed. They finished nearly last. But that evening, back home, Rick typed the sentence that would change everything.
From that day on, father and son never stopped: over 1,000 races together, including 32 Boston Marathons and six Ironman triathlons, and, in 1992, a 3,735-mile run-and-bike journey across the United States in 45 days. Dick Hoyt died in 2021, at 80; Rick followed two years later, in 2023, at 61. But their story keeps inspiring everyone who hears it.
You don’t need to run a marathon to apply what Team Hoyt teaches us. The message is simpler, and more demanding: showing up, every day, for the people we love — not when conditions are perfect, but when it truly matters. Dick Hoyt never called what he did a sacrifice: he said it was Rick who pushed him forward, not the other way around.
If there’s someone in your life right now who needs to be “pushed” — with patience, with presence, with no rush to finish first — this story is a good place to start.
Sources
- CBS Sports (2021). Dick Hoyt, Boston Marathon icon who pushed his wheelchair-bound son in the race, dies at 80.
- The Boston Globe (2023). Rick Hoyt, beloved Boston Marathon icon, dies at 61.
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