Market: Boston

Athlete: Jim Norcott Jr. (State Street)

Challenge: “To call to a contest of any kind; to call to answer; to defy.”

In just over one week dozens of athletes with various forms of athletic prowess will challenge themselves to compete in a tremendous contest. The Decathlon is a contest that requires mental, physical and emotional strength and endurance. Athletes are separated by their ability to overcome those inanimate obstacles. Quickly we learn that sometimes the obstacles that you can’t see prove to be the most punishing and the toughest to overcome.

This will be my first time competing in The Decathlon. It’s an event that I’ve been looking forward to all year. I had reached a period in my athletic career where I was looking for something new, something not so typical. Prior to The Decathlon my athletic background included collegiate baseball, triathlons and marathons, but I always struggled to find an event that was a perfect mesh of strength, speed and endurance. The Decathlon is the answer to that call. On July 23rd I’m really looking forward to joining a group of people who like to push themselves to the limit physically while raising money for a great cause.

In Boston we are lucky enough to have 100% of our donation proceeds go to The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Boston Children’s pediatric research, which was just named the #1 pediatric cancer program in the U.S for the third year in a row. Over the past 50 years there have been major advances which have contributed to an increase in the survival rate from 10% to nearly 90% for children diagnosed with cancer. As impressive as that figure is, we need to keep working and raising funds until we can find a cure and get that number to 100%. We need to defy the odds and prove that we can overcome any obstacle, even cancer.

I look forward to the challenge, I look forward to the sweat and pain, I look forward to competing with my fellow Decathletes right up until we finish the final event - the 800m run. Even more so, I look forward to reaching my fundraising goal knowing that my teammates and I took one more step towards finding a cure.

If we continue to challenge ourselves and take pride in that challenge, we can make a bigger difference than we imagined.

Bring it,
Jim