Father And Son

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."

By Rick Reilly
Sports Illustrated - Used with permission

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Tidak ada orang yang kurang kemampuannya untuk merealisasikan
gagasannya, kecuali orang yang kurang keyakinan atas kemampuannya.
(Brian Tracy)

Ujian pertama kualitas karakter hidup seseorang adalah ketika ia
menghadapi kemalangan. (Wayne Cheng)

Kata "TIDA" yang dilontarkan dengan penuh keyakinan jauh lebih
baik dan lebih berwibawa ketimbang kata "YA" yang Anda ucapkan
hanya untuk menyenangkan atau melarikan diri dari kesulitan.
(Mahatma Gandhi)

Kemenangan di atas ring adalah kemenangan kedua, setelah saya
dapat menjadi pemenang atas diri saya sendiri (Mohamad Ali)

Bahrain vs Australia 0-1
Socceroos Mulus

Hilangnya beberapa pemain inti tidak membuat hasrat tim nasional Australia kendur saat menghadapi Bahrain, Rabu (19/11). Target tiga poin yang dipatok sang pelatih, Pim Verbeek, tercapai walau kemenangan 1-0 di Kualifikasi Piala Dunia 2010 Grup 1 terbantu dewi fortuna.

Gol penentu Australia dicetak Mark Bresciano saat laga memasuki injury time. Sontekan pemain kelahiran Melbourne hasil serangan balik apik itu sudah pasti menyakiti hati pemain Bahrain yang sebenarnya menguasai laga.

Australia datang ke pertandingan ini jauh dari kekuatan penuh. Hanya kehadiran Harry Kewell dan Bresciano menjadi penghibur Verbeek, yang sebelumnya kehilangan pemain seperti Vince Grella, Scott McDonald, dan Craig Moore akibat cedera.

“Persiapan kami bukan yang terbaik karena beberapa pemain terpaksa dipulangkan. Pengganti pun hanya datang dua-tiga hari terakhir,” kata Verbeek sebelum laga melalui situs resmi federasi sepakbola Australia.

Dugaan mantan pelatih Feyenoord itu bahwa pertandingan akan berlangsung terbuka bagi kedua kubu terbukti. “Target kami adalah memenangi laga dengan segala cara. Kolega saya, Milan Micala, juga pasti menginstruksikan hal yang sama."

Betul sekali, laga yang berlangsung di Stadion Nasional Bahrain itu berjalan menarik. Lini tengah Socceroos yang dihuni Jason Culina-Mark Bresciano-Tim Cahill-Harry Kewell tidak menampakkan dominasinya. Bahrain kerap membuka ruang di pertahanan Australia. Hanya kombinasi ketidaktenangan, kesigapan kiper Mark Schwarzer, dan tekel detik akhir bek-bek Socceroos yang membuat Bahrain gagal memetik hasil maksimal.

Australia pun menorehkan tiga kemenangan dari tiga laga, memasukkan enam gol tanpa kebobolan. Jepang, yang menang 3-0 atas Qatar, menyusul di posisi kedua dengan tujuh poin. (cw-3)

Vid :
http://www.videoku.tv/action/viewvideo/4873/Indonesian_Model_Elsa_Krasova/?ref=Belajar777