High School Runner Is Making History — and Not Because He’s Autistic
Eighteen-year-old running phenomenon Mike Brannigan is breaking records, and stereotypes, as the Paralympics-bound, fastest two-mile high school runner in the country. (Photo: Kevin Brannigan/Twitter)
He’s the fastest 2-mile high school runner in America; he was named a Sports Illustrated high school athlete of the month in February; and after graduation this month, the 18-year-old track star is going pro. The fact that Mike Brannigan also has autism only adds to his success, says the East Northport, N.Y., senior’s mother, Edie Brannigan. “I always correct people when they call Mike ‘the autistic runner,’” she tells Yahoo Parenting. “Mikey is a great runner, period. He’s a great runner who also has autism.”
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Mike’s disability, diagnosed when he was 18 months old, has given him the ability to focus “and become the champion runner that he is,” says his mom, who has two other sons, Patrick, 20, and Thomas, 14, with her husband, Kevin Brannigan. “There’s no doubt in my mind that the way his brain works is an asset to his running.”
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At first, Edie admits, she was lost when it came to figuring out how to help her middle son, who was so hyperactive at home that they had to block the “whirling dervish” from access to windows so that he wouldn’t jump out of them. “At the time when he was diagnosed, around 1996, nobody knew what autism was,” she says. “Even I was like, ‘What’s that? Like Rain Man?’ I had no clue. Awareness of it boomed soon after that, thank God. But at the time, I got severely depressed. It rocked me because when it’s your kid, who you would lay on railroad tracks for, and there’s nothing you can do, and you don’t know what this means for his future, it’s scary. I didn’t sleep for years worrying about him. Then, what happens is, life goes on.”
The Brannigans (Photo: Kevin Brannigan/Facebook)
Their breakthrough came one day at the playground when Mike was 5 years old. “He was on the jungle gym, hanging, just looking at me, and I said, ‘What?’” she says. “He said, ‘Help me,’ and I fell right to the ground and my knees just caved. I knew in that second that everything was going to be OK, because if he can do that, speak on his own, then he can do anything. That leap from just copying, parroting speaking on demand, showed me that he was thinking and had an understanding of what was going on.”
Edie got Mike into special education, learned how to coordinate with the school district for services, and worked with him at home to reinforce the teachings. By age 7, Mike had joined a running, walking, and wheelchair racing team, Rolling Thunder Special Needs Program, and two years later he showed the world what he could really do.
In a field of nearly 5,500 runners in the Marine Corps Marathon 10K in Washington, D.C., in 2009, the then-12-year-old rocketed through the course running a 6:12 mile pace to finish 22nd. “I have so much pride,” Kevin Brannigan told Sports Illustrated in February. “I’m sure every father and parent feels that same way, but to know where he came from, it’s so much pride to see him [run].”
Photo: Kevin Brannigan/Facebook
And he’s only sped up since. Mike will hit the road — after graduation on June 27 — training for the 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, for which he’ll forgo college. “He has the opportunity to travel the world,” says Edie of his itinerary, which includes qualifying races in Doha and Toronto. “I’ve never even been to California, and now I’m figuring international travel times. It’s an incredible experience for him. Even just graduating high school, which they told me would never happen, is amazing.”
Photo: Kevin Brannigan/Facebook
Social difficulty — in being rejected at times by classmates, in dating, and in “not being invited to parties” — along the way hasn’t been easy, Edie says. “But despite that, he has continued on and hasn’t folded up. It’s just unbelievable what a gift this kid is. He’s beat so much adversity to be where he is today. It’s a story of triumph for anyone with a disability.”
Just don’t tell him that he’s “overcome autism,” says Edie. “He hasn’t ‘overcome’ anything. He’s just kept going. He’s still autistic. He doesn’t ‘suffer’ from it, either. He’s dealing with it and doing the best he can. And you know what? It’s awesome.”
Mike has a message for kids with autism. “You have many talents, and you can find them,” the athlete told Fox 45. “Just do what you love to do.”
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