An athlete who really is larger than life
I thought Dick Hoyt would be taller.
Truth is, there was no way he could be as big in real life as he was in my head. It’s impossible, after all, for someone to be larger than life.
Hoyt is the man profiled Sunday. He is the 69-year-old father of a 47-year-old wheelchair-bound son, and together, they have finished over a thousand athletic events. Road races. Half marathons. Marathons. Even triathlons.
It is truly an inspirational story.
And Tuesday evening, Hoyt told it to a packed auditorium at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. He was the featured speaker at the City Rescue Mission’s Mission of Hope Banquet.
Few made it through his entire presentation without shedding at least a few tears.
But there were plenty of laughs, too. Hoyt told the story of Rick’s birth, about how his son’s umbilical cord became wrapped around his neck, cutting off his oxygen and leaving him with cerebral palsy. When doctors examined Rick a few months later, they had some devastating words for the Hoyts.
“Put him in an institution,” doctors told them. “He’s going to be nothing but a vegetable for the rest of his life.”
Hoyt paused as he told the story Tuesday night.
“We still haven’t figured out what kind of vegetable he is,” he said.
Hoyt’s message is very strong, very powerful, but what struck me as he talked Tuesday was how human he is. Yes, he’s done something amazing. Sure, he’s physically doing at 69 years old what few of us can imagine. But what he’s done hasn’t been because he’s so big or so tall. He isn’t super-human.
Dick Hoyt is just a normal guy who set his mind and his heart on something amazing, then he did what it took to make it happen.
That makes him super human.
And despite his average stature, that makes him larger than life.
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See now this is a good story Jenni! Keep writing things like this and quit giving us your opinion on football related matters.