Team Hoyt

Rick Hoyt loves the Boston Marathon. He has run it for the last 17 years. But he can't do it alone. Because cerebral palsy has confined him to a wheelchair since birth, Rick Hoyt needs a push. That's where his father comes in.

Dick Hoyt loves the Marathon too. He has also run it 17 straight years and looks forward to the next one 10 days from now. But he too needed a push to get started.

Rick, then a student at South Middle School in Westfield, came home from watching a high school basketball game one day and told his father -- with the help of a head switch atop his wheelchair -- about a charity road race staged to benefit a fellow student who was paralyzed in an auto accident. He told his father he wanted to be a part of the race.

Dick Hoyt accepted the gentle push. Never mind that he was 40 years old and ran just once or twice a week -- "to keep the weight down." Never mind he ran a mile at a time -- at most. Never mind he was not only being asked to run five miles, but to push his son and the 50-pound wheelchair with him. His son wanted to be a part of this race. A friend snapped a picture of the father and son as they crossed the finish line that afternoon. "It's the biggest smile you ever saw in your life," Dick says of the look on his son's face. "Rick's still got that picture at home."

That's how it started. Since then, Rick and Dick Hoyt have completed 50 marathons and 121 triathlons. They also crossed the country on a bicycle, completing the 3,700-mile trek in 45 days. And aside from their tremendous physical achievements, the Hoyts have been opening plenty of eyes along the way. "When we first started, nobody wanted us," says Dick, now 56 years old. "Nobody would come near us. But we just ran every weekend and after a while people would finally come over and talk to us and they could see Rick could understand them and that he had a personality and a sense of humor. "We started breaking down a bunch of barriers. Now we're getting invited all over the world. Not just this country but countries all over the world. We're breaking down barriers about people with disabilities."

And, as his father is quick to point out, Rick may have been born with cerebral palsy and he may be confined to a wheelchair, but he's accomplished things that would seriously challenge most people.