SI's Gary Smith on Dick and Rick Hoyt

Sorry if this has been posted, but thought Gary Smith did an outstanding job in last week's SI on story of Dick and Rick Hoyt -- father has pushed disabled son through 1,000-plus races and triathlons since 1977. If you have 10 minutes, it's worth your time:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1184410/index.htm

If you have the issue, there's a series of photos throughout the story that show their races through the years. Really added a lot to the story. ...

Rick Reilly wrote column on it back in 2005, and obviously Smith has a lot more room to work with it, but I like Smith's much more.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1111767/index.htm

 

That story writes itself. Dick and Rick Hoyt are amazing. Absolutely amazing.

I have this story bookmarked to read later, but the subject matter alone is worth the time.

 

Read it this morning. Both Dick and Rick are truly amazing people.

 

Does anyone know how the Hoys did in Boston on Monday? Did they finish?

 

Hate to be negative, because it truly was great material, but it dragged on toward about the 3/4 mark. We didn't need every race detail of the two as they grew together. But Smith did a great job closing the story.

 

I agree that it was a little drawn out on details about specific races, but I loved the balanced approach. It was almost like an adoring criticism. Like Smith respected but resented at the same time.

This guy has a huge heart, he's just also f*ing crazy.

Also, 10 minutes? It took you 10 minutes to read that? Am I doing something wrong?

 

If I did the search right, the Hoyts finished 23,875th out of 23,879. Took them a little more than 7 hours.

 

Hard not to be a fan -- of either the subjects of the story, or the writer.

 

Great human interest story. I left it for my wife to read, and she's not an avid SI reader by any stretch.

One critique is that the story about Dick collapsing after one of the early races and his family discovering that he was peeing blood. It's almost a throwaway line b/c Smith never explains why that happened. Maybe I'm not educated enough about the subject of distance running, but is it common for people to urinate blood after their first few events? Seems like it could have been a semi-serious health issue (must not have been, though, b/c it's never revisited). Why include it at all, then?

 

Sounds like a good article about good subjects. But, damn, the over-the-top fawning here is a turnoff.