correct video link for Strongest Dad in the World From Sports Illustrated

[Guest guest]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4B-r8KJhlE

This is very uplifting and touching. Take a few minutes to read this and watch the video. :-) Nila

Strongest Dad in the World

Here's the video....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjPrL3n63yg[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to payfor their text messaging. Take them to swimsuitshoots. But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck. Eighty-five times he'spushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight timeshe's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in aseat on the handlebars--all in the same day.Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makestaking your son bowling look a little lame, right?And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.This love story began in Winchester, Mass. 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving himbrain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.``He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors toldhim and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an institution.''But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyesfollowed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to theengineering department at Tufts University and askedif there was anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dicksays he was told.``There's nothing going on in his brain.''"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out aRigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor bytouching a switch with the side of his head, Rickwas finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after ahigh school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want to dothat.''Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ranmore than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I wassore for two weeks.''That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed,``when we wererunning, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with givingRick that feeling as often as he could. He got into shape; suchhard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 BostonMarathon. ``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quitea single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For afew years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race offi cially:In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifyingtime for Boston the following year.Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?'' How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike sincehe was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still,Dick tried.Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old studgetting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't youthink?Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own?``No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ridetogether.This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24thBoston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time'? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes offthe world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things,happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in awheelchair at the time. ``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.''And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he hada mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,''one doctortold him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.''So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland,Mass., alwaysfind ways to be together. They give speeches around thecountry and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, includingthis Father's Day. That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he reallywants to give him is a gift he can never buy.``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in thechair and I push him once.'' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjPrL3n63yg

Check the weather nationwide with MSN Search: Try it now! Check the weather nationwide with MSN Search: Try it now!