Special Olympian with Down syndrome dies after joyful life today.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from today.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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.
The longest-serving athlete : Pioneering Special Olympian dies chicagotribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from chicagotribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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When Michael Cusack jumped into the pool, he was all business confident, unflappable and certainly not troubled by a pair of swim trunks that wouldn’t stay on.
So when he started to fall behind in a race in California in 1971, he didn’t hesitate.
“He just kicked them off and finished the race naked and won,” said Connie Cusack McIntosh, one of his four sisters.
Mr. Cusack amassed hundreds of medals many of them gold during a Special Olympics career that spanned almost four decades and began during the first ever event at Soldier Field in 1968. He was just 12 at the time, his sister said.