Michael 'Moose' Cusack, an inspiration for Special Olympics and multiple medalist, dies at 64 CHICAGO -- Michael "Moose" Cusack, a Chicago-area man who helped inspire the Special Olympics movement and who won multiple medals at the athletic event over years, has died. He was 64. The Chicago Tribute reported Monday that Cusack, who had Down syndrome, died at Good Shepherd Manor in Momence, just south of Chicago, on Dec. 17 of natural causes associated with Alzheimer's. When he was 10, Cusack joined a Chicago Park District program for children with disabilities, where he met a young physical education teacher, Anne Burke, who is now the chief justice on the Illinois Supreme Court.