‘The longest-serving athlete’: Pioneering Special Olympian dies
By Paige Fry, Chicago Tribune
Published: December 28, 2020, 6:05am
Share:
4 Photos
About 300 young athletes showed off their skills in such sports as swimming, gymnastics and volleyball during the opening of the first 1974 Northern Area Special Olympics on April 19, 1974. (James O'Leary / Chicago Tribune/TNS)
Photo Gallery
CHICAGO – When Michael “Moose” Cusack was born in the Chicago Lying-in Hospital in 1956, doctors told his parents that something was wrong — he had Down syndrome. They advised: don’t bring him home. It was better to institutionalize him early, his parents were told.
John and Esther Cusack’s first step toward challenging the status quo was bringing their son home. They raised him, loved him and nurtured him the same as his four sisters.