"My son Rick was a very active baby," Dick Hoyt recalled.

During birth, Rick turned over. That twisted the umbilical cord around his neck. With his supply of oxygen cut, Rick was born with brain damage.

Rick failed to develop normally, and after eight months Dick and his wife, Judy, went to see a pediatric specialist near their town of Winchester, Mass.

"They did tests," Dick Hoyt said. "They told us Rick had cerebral palsy. The doctor said Rick would be a vegetable. They told us to forget him. Put him away. On our way home, my wife and I cried."

But the Hoyts did not abandon Rick. They ignored that doctor's advice. Instead of letting themselves be helpless victims, Rick and Dick have become an acclaimed athletic team. They have competed in nearly 1,000 grueling, big-time sporting competitions.

"And we have never once finished last," Dick Hoyt said.

Their athletic resume includes 25 goes in the Boston Marathon, the 26-mile, 368-yard race as famous for breaking athletes as for its millions of spectators lining its multicity-and-town course.

In marathons, Dick pushes Rick in a customized wheelchair. And Team Hoyt, as they call themselves, has expanded into triathlons.

During the 112-mile bicycling segment, Rick rides in a seat pod attached to the bike.

For the 2.4-mile swimming leg, Dick is a one-man tugboat. With ropes trailing from his chest harness, he hauls Rick in a boat, often a nine-foot Boston Whaler.

Raising Funds

The dynamic duo has become a familiar fixture in popular races. Their high profile has made them valuable fundraisers for charitable organizations such as Easter Seals. Perhaps equally important, their perseverance in the face of mountainous odds has made them inspirations for other individuals and families facing daunting challenges stemming from disabilities.

Before reaching this pinnacle, the Hoyts had to fight for basic rights. Rick was born as a nonverbal quadriplegic. Judy helped campaign for the creation of Massachusetts' special education law, known as Chapter 766. "That was a fight to enable Rick to attend public school," Dick Hoyt said.

The Hoyts' local public educators resisted Rick's attendance. "They thought Rick could not learn," Hoyt said. But the more the Hoyts were told to give up, the harder they tried to succeed.

Hoyt arranged to introduce Rick to some innovative Tufts University engineers. At first glance, Rick's spastic body movements seemed random. And he still couldn't talk. So when Hoyt asked the engineers if they could help, they doubted it.

"They said there was nothing going on in his brain," Hoyt said. "So I told them to tell him a joke."

When Rick laughed at the punch line, the engineers realized they had a client capable of using whatever solution they could concoct.

Still, this was 1972, before the era of personal computers. A custom-tailored computer would cost $5,000. So the Hoyts and their neighbors organized fundraisers. They netted $40 with a carnival. A cake sale earned $300. A church sponsored a crafts fair. The Hoyts hosted a dinner dance, according to biographer Geoff Marchant.

The Tufts engineers finally built a computer. Rick could control its cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head.

"Judy thought Rick's first word would be 'Mom!' " Hoyt said. "I thought it would be 'Dad!' But his first words were, 'Go, Bruins!' "

Rick was an ardent fan of Boston's pro hockey team.

Via computer, Rick answered entry questions at a suburban Boston school, so he was enrolled. Rick went on to graduate from Boston University in 1993.

The Hoyts, who divorced in 1994, have two other sons.

Team Hoyt's involvement with athletics began when Rick asked Dick if they could enter a five-mile road race. It was a fund raiser for an athlete who had been paralyzed in an accident.

"It was 1977. Rick was still in high school," Hoyt said. "He wanted to help this local college kid. Show him that life can go on after a serious injury."

All the Hoyts had was a regular wheelchair, not designed for racing. "It weighed a lot," Hoyt said. "It was hard to push at a walking pace, let alone run with."

The Hoyts helped raise money for the athlete's medical bills. Their own payoff came after the race. Rick typed on his computer that during the race he did not feel handicapped.

The Hoyts wanted to do it again. "But I felt disabled after that race," Hoyt said. "I could hardly walk for two weeks."

And they needed a better wheelchair. After a long search, they found a craftsman who built them a lightweight chair with two wheels in back, one in front.

But entering races proved hard. "Nobody wanted us in," Hoyt said. "Even some families criticized us. They thought I was dragging Rick along on some sort of weird ego trip."

At first, the Boston Athletic Association also rejected their entry. The BAA said they could run behind the official wheelchair competitors in the Boston Marathon, not the regular runners. Besides, the Hoyts had never met the Boston Marathon's qualifying time.

So in 1982 they ran the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. Finishing in 2 hours, 45 minutes, they qualified for the Boston race. They've been official entrants ever since. And in 1996 they were honored as centennial heroes at the race's 100th anniversary.

"We've come a long way," Hoyt said. "And we've broken a lot of barriers."

Dick Hoyt has achieved renown as a marathon man. But at age 66 he's had to overcome ailments and injury to keep competing. Perseverance is his secret weapon.

A retired lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, he and Rick maintain a busy schedule of speaking engagements.

"In January alone I have 15 dates," Hoyt said. "I have almost no time to train. We used to run 50 races a year. We're down to 30."

Battling Back

In a 2005 race, the father tore the meniscus cartilage in his right knee.

Later that year he was asleep on the third floor of a motel in West Palm Beach, Fla., when a fire broke out.

"Rick's wheelchair got stuck on some stairs," he said. "When I lifted the chair, I fractured my right kneecap. I had surgery two days before Christmas."

After all that, the Hoyts still find it all exhilarating. Some of the spark comes from people who send e-mails asking for advice or inspiration about ways to help their own children.

"And people come up to us after races," Hoyt said. "Being able to help others is what it's all about."