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‘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. ....
'The longest-serving athlete': Pioneering Special Olympian dies | Lifestyle uniondemocrat.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from uniondemocrat.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. ....
Michael 'Moose' Cusack, who inspired Special Olympics dies at 64 abc7chicago.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from abc7chicago.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Michael Moose Cusack, inspiration for Special Olympics, dead at 64 Since the first Special Olympics in 1968 in Chicago, it has branched out to more than 170 countries and millions of athletes. Author: Associated Press Updated: 6:50 PM EST December 21, 2020 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 Tribune 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. ....