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Michael Cusack, who helped spark the Special Olympics, dies at 64
Harrison Smith
When Michael Cusack was born in 1956, doctors at Chicago Lying-in Hospital said he had no chance at a normal life. “They told my mom not to even bother looking at him, just to put him in an institution,” his sister Carole Cusack recalled.
Mr. Cusack had Down syndrome, at a time when people with disabilities were routinely ostracized, isolated and neglected, largely barred from opportunities to learn or play. But his parents ignored their doctors’ advice and brought him home, where he acquired a nickname, Mickey, and became known as Mickey Mouse, Mickey Moose and just plain Moose, because he was far stronger than a mouse. ....

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