[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work
nights to pay For their text messaging. Take them to
swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick,
26.2 miles in Marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed
him 26.2 miles in a Wheelchair but also towed him 2.4
miles in a dinghy while swimming and Pedaled him 112 miles
in a seat 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. Makes Taking 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 him Brain-damaged and unable
to control his limbs.

"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says
doctors told him 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 eyes Followed them around the room. When Rick was
11 they took him to the Engineering department at Tufts
University and asked if there was Anything to help the
boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told.
``There's nothing going on in his brain.''

"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed.
Turns out a Lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with
a computer that allowed Him to control the cursor by touching
a switch with the side of his Head, Rick was finally able
to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a
high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and
the School organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked
out, ``Dad, I want To do that.''

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker''
who never ran More 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 was sore For two
weeks.''

That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when
we were running, It felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''

And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed
with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got
into such hard-belly Shape that he and Rick were ready to
try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts
weren't quite a Single runner, and they weren't quite a
wheelchair competitor. For a few Years Dick and Rick just
joined the massive field and ran anyway, then They found
a way to get into the race Officially: In 1983 they ran
another marathon so fast they made the Qualifying time
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 since he 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 stud Getting passed by an old guy towing a
grown man in a dinghy, don't you Think?

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 ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their
24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than
20,000 starters. Their best Time? Two hours, 40 minutes
in 1992--only 35 minutes off the 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 a wheelchair 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 had a 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 doctor
told 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. , always find ways to be together.
They give speeches around the country and compete in some
backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he
really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad
sit in the chair and I push him once.''

And the video is below....