Father and son team face adversity

Every year, thousands of people from across the globe congregate in Boston to run the Boston Marathon. Among those are runners who are trying to win the prize money, who are raising money for causes, or who just love to run. Each of these runners demonstrates a level of physical and mental toughness in order to finish the race, but none are more dedicated than Team Hoyt.

Dick Hoyt and his son, Rick, have been running road races, marathons, and triathlons for over 30 years, completing nearly 1,000 races. While this achievement would be considered great by any ordinary standard, Team Hoyt is not by any means an ordinary team. Rick cannot walk, talk, or move any parts of his body other than his head and has been pushed by Dick in a wheelchair in every one of their 998 races to date.

Dick Hoyt traveled the short distance from his home in Holland, Mass., to Boston College on Monday night to speak about his experience over the past 30 years racing with his son. The presentation took place in the Murray Room of the Yawkey center, in front of a standing room only crowd that packed the spacious meeting room. The Campus School Marathon Committee, comprised of Tim Sullivan, LSOE '10, Carrie Jantsch, A&S '09, Bobby Borrelle, A&S '09, John Rodier, CSOM '09, Dan Roemer, CSOM '10, and Lindsey Gabrielsen, A&S '11, sponsored the event.

The Campus School organizes a marathon team each year that runs the Boston Marathon in an effort to raise money for the students of the Campus School here at BC. "The Campus School currently serves about 45 students all suffering from multiple severe disabilities [ages three to 21]," Jantsch said. Sullivan said that the speaking appearance of Hoyt was appropriate to this week, as the philosophies of Hoyt and the school coincide. "The Campus School message is 'realizing the potential in all children.' Team Hoyt's message is that everyone should be included. The two messages are very similar, which is why we brought him here to speak."

Dick incorporated footage of Team Hoyt competing in marathons and triathlons into his presentation, giving the audience a glimpse of the team in action. He outlined their story from Rick's birth to the present day and his training for Team Hoyt's 1,00­0th race this April in the Boston Marathon.

A question many have asked is how a team consisting of a quadriplegic son and his ex-Lieutenant Colonel father became expert marathon runners. The answer lies in Rick's concern for others and his motive for racing, which is, as he said, "that everybody should be included in everyday life."

Rick was born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his head, which deprived his brain of oxygen for several minutes. This incident caused severe brain damage and caused Rick to lose use of his arms and legs. "The doctors told us that we should just put him away, that he would be a vegetable. But we were convinced that he should be given as normal a life as possible, so we brought him home," Dick said.

The Hoyt family worked with a team of engineers at Tufts University to develop a computer that Rick could manipulate with his head in order to communicate. He said his first words "Go Bruins" at the age of 12 and has since graduated from Boston University.

It was Rick's enrollment at a public school that first inspired his desire for running. Always a sports fan, Rick was attending a basketball game one night in 1977, when he heard at halftime that a lacrosse player had been paralyzed in a car accident, and there was a five mile charity run for him in a few weeks.

That night Rick told his father that he wanted to run the race so that he could show the lacrosse player that even people who were paralyzed could participate in activities just like everyone else. Even though Dick had never run as far as five miles before, he agreed to push Rick, and they completed the race, coming in next to last place. "We have never, in all 998 events that we have participated in, come in last place," Dick said.

The night after the race, Rick told his dad the simple statement that changed both of their lives. "He said, 'Dad, when we were running it didn't feel like I had a disability. I felt like one of the other runners,'" Dick said. At that moment, Dick knew that they would be running in a lot more races in the future.

Since the day of their first race in 1977, the Hoyts have gone on to compete in the Boston Marathon and the Ironman Triathlon, have bicycled across the United States in 44 days, have climbed mountains, and have been inducted into the Ironman Hall of Fame.

They have qualified for the Boston Marathon each year since 1984, missing it only two times, with a fastest time of two hours and 40 minutes, only a half hour off of the winning time.