Team Hoyt

Dick Hoyt will be appearing at Trinity United Methodist Church to tell the inspirational story of Team Hoyt, a father and son marathon team.

Dick and Rick Hoyt are a father-and-son team from Massachusetts who together compete just about continuously in marathon races. 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.

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 there would be no hope for their child’s development. “It’s been a story of exclusion ever since he was born,” Dick has said. “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.”

For the past twenty-five years 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 Dick is pushing. When Dick cycles, Rick is in the seat-pod from his wheelchair, attached to the front of Dick’s bike. When Dick swims, Rick is in a small but heavy, firmly stabilized boat pulled by Dick.

Rick’s own accomplishments, quite apart from the duo’s continuing athletic success, have included his 1993 graduation from Boston University with a degree in special education. A few weeks after graduation, Team Hoyt once again entered the Boston Marathon.

Rick now works at Boston College’s computer laboratory helping to develop a system codenamed "Eagle Eyes." This system has mechanical aids (similar to a powered wheelchair), which when computer-linked, can be controlled by a paralyzed person’s eye movements.

Together, the Hoyts do not 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.

Dick Hoyt will be appearing at Trinity United Methodist Church at 4000 NW 53rd Ave in Gainesville on May 14 at 7:00 pm to tell the inspirational story of TEAM Hoyt.

For more information, contact Trinity United Methodist Church at 352-376-6615 or www.trinitygnv.org or go to www.teamhoyt .com