01/28/2026
lots of people newer to the sport may not know the amazing story of “team hoyt”
In the spring of 1977, fifteen-year-old Rick Hoyt had a request for his father.
A lacrosse player at Rick's school had been paralyzed in an accident. The community was organizing a five-mile charity run to raise money for him. Rick wanted to participate.
Rick had cerebral palsy. His umbilical cord had wrapped around his neck during birth, cutting off oxygen to his brain. He was diagnosed as a spastic quadriplegic. He could not walk. He could not speak. He relied on a wheelchair for mobility.
But Rick wanted to run.
Dick Hoyt was thirty-six years old. He was a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Air National Guard. He had never been a runner. He had never even considered running a race.
But his son was asking.
Dick said yes.
They entered the race together. Dick pushed Rick in his wheelchair for the entire five miles. It was harder than Dick expected. His legs burned. His lungs screamed. But he kept pushing.
They finished next to last. But they finished.
That night, Rick sat down at his computer. Engineers at Tufts University had built a communication device for him years earlier. Rick controlled it by tapping a switch with the side of his head. He selected letters to form words. A computerized voice spoke them aloud.
Rick typed a message for his father.
"Dad, when I'm running, it feels like I'm not handicapped."
Those eleven words changed everything.
Dick realized something profound in that moment. When they were running together, Rick wasn't defined by his wheelchair. He wasn't limited by his disability. He was simply an athlete—running alongside everyone else, experiencing the same freedom, the same joy, the same wind in his face.
Dick decided then that he would give his son that feeling as often as possible.
Team Hoyt was born.
Dick began training immediately. Since Rick was at school during the day, Dick pushed a wheelchair filled with a bag of cement. He ran every single day. He improved so dramatically that even while pushing Rick, he eventually achieved a personal record of seventeen minutes for a 5K.
They started entering more races. Five-kilometer runs. Ten-kilometer runs. Half marathons. With each race, Rick's smile grew wider. With each finish line, Dick grew stronger.
In 1980, they ran their first Boston Marathon together.
They finished in the top quarter of the field.
People began to notice. At first, other competitors avoided them. Some treated them as outsiders. But gradually, attitudes shifted. Athletes started approaching Rick before races to wish him luck. Spectators lined the course to cheer specifically for Team Hoyt.
Dick and Rick weren't just running anymore. They were changing hearts and minds.
Over the next four decades, Team Hoyt completed more than 1,100 endurance events. They ran 32 Boston Marathons between 1980 and 2014. They competed in 72 marathons total. They finished six Ironman triathlons—a grueling test of swimming, cycling, and running that covers over 140 miles.
For the swimming portion, Dick pulled Rick in a raft attached to his body with a rope. For the cycling portion, Rick rode in a special seat mounted on the front of a tandem bike. For the running portion, Dick pushed Rick in his custom-built racing wheelchair.
In 1989, they became the first wheelchair team to complete the Hawaii Ironman. The race took them over fifteen hours. They crossed the finish line exhausted but triumphant.
In 1992, they biked and ran across the entire United States. They covered 3,735 miles in forty-five consecutive days, traveling from Santa Monica, California, to Boston Harbor, Massachusetts.
Their marathon personal record was two hours, forty minutes, and forty-seven seconds—a time that would be impressive for any able-bodied runner, let alone a father pushing his son in a wheelchair.
Team Hoyt's achievements went beyond athletics. In 1989, Dick and Rick founded The Hoyt Foundation. The organization's mission was to empower young people with disabilities through inclusion in sports and everyday life. The foundation's motto became "Yes You Can"—a direct reflection of Rick and Dick's philosophy.
The foundation provided grants ranging from five thousand to twenty-five thousand dollars to help children with disabilities achieve their goals. They helped kids get adaptive equipment. They helped families afford assistive technology. They helped break down the barriers that so often kept disabled children on the sidelines.
Rick's mother, Judy, fought her own battles for inclusion. When Rick was young, schools refused to admit him. Officials insisted he couldn't learn. Judy refused to accept that answer. She worked tirelessly to change Massachusetts law. Her advocacy helped pass Chapter 766—the first special education reform law in the country.
Rick proved every doubter wrong. He attended public school. He graduated from Boston University in 1993 with a degree in special education. He later worked at Boston College, helping to develop assistive technology for people with disabilities.
The honors came steadily. In 2008, Team Hoyt was inducted into the Ironman Hall of Fame. They were only the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth members ever inducted. In 2013, ESPN awarded them the Jimmy V Perseverance Award at the ESPY Awards. That same year, a bronze statue of Dick pushing Rick was unveiled near the starting line of the Boston Marathon in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.
The statue's title: "Yes You Can!"
In 2013, Dick and Rick were running the Boston Marathon when two bombs exploded near the finish line. They were about a mile away when officials stopped the race. They weren't injured. A bystander with an SUV gave them a ride to safety. They were temporarily separated from Rick's wheelchair in the chaos.
They returned the following year to finish what they started. On April 21, 2014, Dick and Rick completed their thirty-second and final Boston Marathon together.
From 2015 to 2019, Rick continued racing, pushed by Bryan Lyons, a dentist from Billerica, Massachusetts, who had become a close family friend. Bryan died in June 2020 at age fifty.
Dick Hoyt died in his sleep on March 17, 2021. He was eighty years old. He had been experiencing health problems but remained active until the end.
Rick Hoyt died on May 22, 2023. He was sixty-one. Like his father, he passed away peacefully. The cause was complications with his respiratory system.
Five days after Rick's death, the first Dick Hoyt Memorial "Yes You Can" Run Together Race was held in Hopkinton. The family considered postponing it. But they decided Dick and Rick would have wanted the race to go on. The event raised seventy thousand dollars for The Hoyt Foundation.
Today, Team Hoyt chapters exist across the United States and Canada. Nearly a dozen teams carry on the mission Dick and Rick started in 1977. Athletes with disabilities and their partners compete together in races, proving again and again that limitations exist only in the mind.
Rick and Dick Hoyt are buried side by side at Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne, Massachusetts.
In life, they never left each other's side. In death, they remain together.
Dick once reflected on their journey: "You know, I'm just a regular guy. I mow my lawn, shovel snow from the driveway, and change the oil in our vehicles. I do the grocery shopping and cook most of our dinners. I'm like any other man in America. Only I got lucky—I have a beautiful son and an activity we can do together, despite his disability."
Rick said it differently: "He was my motor. I was his heart."
Together, they showed the world what unconditional love looks like. Together, they proved that disabilities don't define us—our choices do. Together, they ran more than a thousand races and changed millions of lives.
And it all started with one simple question from a fifteen-year-old boy who just wanted to help a classmate—and discovered he could run.
