[CS-FSLUG] [OT] "CAN" -- the message of Team Hoyt

[Michael Bradley, Jr.]

MichaelBradleyJr is sending this message
----------------------------------
My home on the Net ::
    http://www.michaelsbradleyjr.net/



Dear friends, it was nearly three years ago when one evening I attended a
barbecue and adult fellowship gathering at Grace
Fellowship<http://www.gracejohnsoncity.org/templates/cusgracefellowship/default.asp?id=27146>church
in Johnson City, TN, with my friend Julia.  Shortly after our
arrival, the event coordinator told the group that he wanted to show us all
a special video.  It was less than five minutes in length, but after the
video was over and the lights were turned back on, it was clear that few dry
eyes remained among the approx. twenty men and women present in the room
(that is your warning, by the way).

This weekend I stumbled across a link to the same video, which can now be
watched on-line for free:


Can

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


It had the same effect on me two days ago as it did three years ago.  It is
a poweful testimony to the dignity and worth of every human life, and the
great heights of human achievent to which love can move us.  It is, as the
video's author suggests by way of the musical accompinant, a kind of
allegory too with regard to the triumph of the
Incarnation<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07706b.htm>and the awesome
love and mercy of God lavished upon us in the work of the
Redemption <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12677d.htm>.  I hope that all of
you will watch it -- I request that you do so, all the way through -- and I
hope that you enjoy it and that it inspires you to overcome, with and in and
through Our Lord, whatever obstacles you may face in your life.  IC XC NIKA



=========================
TEAM HOYT
=========================

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

Then read the article below

http://www.teamhoyt.com/history.shtml

Racing Towards Inclusion
by David Tereshchuk

Dick and Rick Hoyt are a father-and-son team from Massachusetts who together
compete just about continuously in marathon races. And if they're not in a
marathon they are in a triathlon — that 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.

It's a remarkable record of exertion — all the more so when you consider
that Rick can't walk or talk.

For the past twenty five years or more Dick, who is 65, has pushed and
pulled his son across the country and over hundreds of finish lines. When
Dick runs, Rick is in a wheelchair that Dick is pushing. When Dick cycles,
Rick is in the seat-pod from his wheelchair, attached to the front of the
bike. When Dick swims, Rick is in a small but heavy, firmly stabilized boat
being pulled by Dick.

At Rick's birth in 1962 the umbilical cord coiled around his neck and cut
off oxygen to his brain. Dick and his wife, Judy, were told that there would
be no hope for their child's development.

"It's been a story of exclusion ever since he was born," Dick told me. "When
he was eight months old the doctors told us we should just put him away —
he'd be a vegetable all his life, that sort of thing. Well those doctors are
not alive any more, but I would like them to be able to see Rick now."

The couple brought their son home determined to raise him as "normally" as
possible. Within five years, Rick had two younger brothers, and the Hoyts
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.

When the computer was originally brought home, Rick surprised his family
with his first "spoken" words. They had expected perhaps "Hi, Mom" or "Hi,
Dad." But on the screen Rick wrote "Go Bruins." The Boston Bruins were in
the Stanley Cup finals that season, and his family realized he had been
following the hockey games along with everyone else. "So we learned then
that Rick loved sports," said Dick.

In 1975, Rick was finally admitted into a public school. Two years later, he
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. Rick reflected on the transformation process for me, using his
now-familiar but ever-painstaking technique of picking out letters of the
alphabet:
 " What I mean when I say I feel like I am not handicapped when competing is
that I am just like the other athletes, and I think most of the athletes
feel the same way. In the beginning nobody would come up to me. However,
after a few races some athletes came around and they began to talk to me.
During the early days one runner, Pete Wisnewski had a bet with me at every
race on who would beat who. The loser had to hang the winner's number in his
bedroom until the next race. Now many athletes will come up to me before the
race or triathlon to wish me luck."

It is hard to imagine now the resistance which the Hoyts encountered early
on, but attitudes did begin to change when they entered the Boston Marathon
in 1981, and finished in the top quarter of the field. Dick recalls the
earlier, less tolerant days with more sadness than anger:

"Nobody wanted Rick in a road race. Everybody looked at us, nobody talked to
us, nobody wanted to have anything to do with us. But you can't really blame
them - people often are not educated, and they'd never seen anyone like us.
As time went on, though, they could see he was a person — he has a great
sense of humor, for instance. That made a big difference."

After 4 years of marathons, Team Hoyt attempted their first triathlon — and
for this Dick had to learn 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."

With a newly-built bike (adapted to carry Rick in front) and a boat tied to
Dick's waist as he swam, the Hoyts came in second-to-last in the competition
held on Father's Day 1985.

"We chuckle to think about that as my Father's Day present from Rick, " said
Dick.

They have been competing ever since, at home and increasingly abroad.
Generally they manage to improve their finishing times. "Rick is the one who
inspires and motivates me, the way he just loves sports and competing," Dick
said.

And the business of inspiring evidently works as a two-way street. Rick
typed out this testimony:
 "Dad is one of my role models. Once he sets out to do something, Dad sticks
to it whatever it is, until it is done. For example once we decided to
really get into triathlons, dad worked out, up to five hours a day, five
times a week, even when he was working."

The Hoyts' mutual inspiration for each other seems to embrace others too —
many spectators and fellow-competitors have adopted Team Hoyt as a powerful
example of determination. "It's been funny," said Dick "Some people have
turned out, some in good shape, some really out of shape, and they say 'we
want to thank you, because we're here because of you'."

Rick too has taken full note of their effect on fellow-competitors while
racing:
 "Whenever we are passed (usually on the bike) the athlete will say "Go for
it!" or "Rick, help your Dad!" When we pass people (usually on the run)
they'll say "Go Team Hoyt!" or "If not for you, we would not be out here
doing this."

Most of all, perhaps, the Hoyts can see an impact from their efforts in the
area of the handicapped, and on public attitudes toward the physically and
mentally challenged.

"That's the big thing," said Dick. "People just need to be educated. Rick is
helping many other families coping with disabilities in their struggle to be
included."

That is not to say that all obstacles are now overcome for the Hoyts. Dick
is "still bothered," he says, by people who are discomforted because Rick
cannot fully control his tongue while eating. "In restaurants - and it's
only older people mostly - they'll see Rick's food being pushed out of his
mouth and they'll leave, or change their table. But I have to say that kind
of intolerance is gradually being defeated."

Rick's own accomplishments, quite apart from the duo's continuing athletic
success, have included his moving on from high school to Boston University,
where he graduated in 1993 with a degree in special education. That was
followed a few weeks later by another entry in the Boston Marathon. As he
fondly pictured it: "On the day of the marathon from Hopkinton to Boston
people all over the course were wishing me luck, and they had signs up which
read `congratulations on your graduation!'"

Rick now works at Boston College's computer laboratory helping to develop a
system codenamed "Eagle Eyes," through which mechanical aids (like for
instance a powered wheelchair) could be controlled by a paralyzed person's
eye-movements, when linked-up to a computer.

Together the Hoyts don't only compete athletically; they also go on
motivational speaking tours, spreading the Hoyt brand of inspiration to all
kinds of audiences, sporting and non-sporting, across the country.

Rick himself is confident that his visibility — and his father's dedication
— perform a forceful, valuable purpose in a world that is too often divisive
and exclusionary. He typed a simple parting thought:
"The message of Team Hoyt is that everybody should be included in everyday
life."


David Tereshchuk is a documentary television producer. He currently works
for the United Nations.
http://www.teamhoyt.com/history.shtml

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