Dick Hoyt, rear, pushes his son Rick sometime during the 1980s as they compete in the Boston Marathon.

HOLLAND, Mass. — The year was 1992, and Dick Hoyt and his son, Rick, wanted to run and bike across the country to raise funds for a charity for cerebral palsy — a condition 30-year-old Rick developed at birth.

But cerebral palsy didn't want anything to do with a trek across the United States.

“And, uh, so this insurance company that was going to finance us backed out with four weeks to go before — so we had to refinance our house here so we are able to pick up the expenses,” Dick Hoyt recalled recently, sitting next to his quadriplegic son at their home in western Massachusetts.

Twenty-one years later, after running, biking and swimming together in some of the world's highest-profile competitions, 73-year-old father and 51-year-old son are among the most recognized faces at the granddaddy of them all — the Boston Marathon.

One of the race's sponsors recently unveiled a life-size statue in their honor in the town where the race starts. Another backer, Timex, pushed so strongly to be identified with the duo that it would allow them to talk to The Associated Press only if the article mentioned the two are promoting the watch maker's social media campaign.

They've gone from being skeptics dogged by veiled references about abuse to visionaries, even heroes, mirroring how perception and treatment of people with disabilities have changed over the years.“When we started running in road races and stuff, I used to get a lot of phone calls and letters from other families that had disabled people, and they were very upset with me; they said, 'What are you doing dragging the disabled son through all these races? Are you just looking for glory for yourself?”' Dick Hoyt said. “What they didn't realize: He was the one dragging me through all these races.”Father and son had to get creative to race together.Dick pushes Rick in a specially designed wheelchair when they run together. When swimming, Rick wears a life jacket and is belted into a seat that's towed by a rope attached to Dad's wetsuit vest. For biking, the younger Hoyt sits in a chair at the front of Dad's bicycle.Rick developed a severe form of cerebral palsy, a condition that limits motor skills, during birth, when the umbilical cord became wrapped around his neck and cut oxygen to his brain.

Dick rejected doctors' suggestions that he put his infant son in an institution. Rick later went to public school and entered Boston University.“This would prove one of the most difficult tasks I'd ever endure, but, finally, after nine long years, I became the first quadriplegic to graduate from the Boston University School of Education,” Rick said through a computer synthesizer he uses for communication. “This has been my greatest personal accomplishment to date because I have shown to disabled people that they don't have to sit back and watch the world go by.”Rick has run, biked and swum with his father in 1,092 races — including 252 triathlons, 70 marathons and 95 half-marathons — over the past 34 years, including a wartime race in El Salvador in which they had to be escorted by armed men.

In this April 5, 2013 photo, Rick Hoyt's personal caregiver Lori Templeman, left, helps him put on gloves at his home in Holland, Mass. Hoyt's father Dick has pushed Rick, who is a quadriplegic and has cerebral palsy, in a specially-designed wheelchair along the 26.2-mile Boston Marathon route for more than 30 years. They plan to compete again in Mondayís race.

Dick Hoyt, left, talks with his son Rick on Saturday as he wheels him next to a statue dedicated in their honor in front of the Center School in Hopkinton, Mass.