Plattsburgh State’s Rich Adickes has a heart for helping others, but it was his heart that nearly derailed his other passion – competitive running.

Adickes is in the midst of his first year as a member of the Plattsburgh State cross country and track teams. But it isn’t just talent that separates the sophomore from the pack. For Adickes, who competes with a pacemaker after suffering a heart attack in high school, logging the miles is more than a labor of love. It’s a miracle.

Adickes began running in the third grade after breaking his leg playing soccer. He honed the skill through an after-school program and throughout middle school. Success followed Adickes through high school, where he was a 17-time varsity letter-winner in track and cross country. Perhaps not surprisingly, he planned to compete for a Division I program.

Away from the track, Adickes was just as active. In addition to serving as the high school mascot, he was a regular volunteer with the Special Olympics and worked with autistic kids, helping them to integrate into the general student body. 

Things were good, but far from perfect. Although he trained hard, neither Adickes nor his coaches believed he was progressing as quickly as he should athletically. He constantly battled sickness, had trouble sleeping and combated frequent fatigue. In spite of changing up his eating habits, rest periods and workouts, nothing seemed to work.

“I’m a math major and I love answers,” said Adickes. “I love when I put things into a calculator or formula and it gives me a straight answer. For the first time I didn’t have an answer for myself for what was going wrong.”

Then while participating in a race early during his senior season, Adickes collapsed.

“I’m running and I start to feel a tight pull in my chest. I don’t know what it is so I start to slow down,” he recalled. “I black out, wake up in an ambulance and I’m strapped to an oxygen tank.”

At the hospital, doctors told Adickes he suffered a massive heart attack caused by an electrical malfunction. His options did not seem attractive. He could leave the problem uncorrected and risk dying in his sleep or get a pacemaker, risk never returning to the track and give up his dream of participating in Division I cross country or track.

Adickes struggled with the decision before ultimately settling on surgery to install a pacemaker, in part because he didn’t want to burden his family.

“Running is something I love, but it’s not who I am,” he said. “It’s something I do.”

But even that was suddenly in question. Doctors gave him just a 2 percent chance of resuming his passion. Adickes held onto the slim margin of hope throughout a lengthy recovery that extended eight months. He eventually earned clearance to run in time to participate in the final race of his senior season. However, his return was marred by something similar to a mild heart attack. The unexpected setback was devastating.

 “Looking back, I realize I was naive,” Adickes said. “I thought everything was set in stone. I had college and everything planned out. This taught me that anything can happen on any given day. There were times when I did give up on running a little bit because things looked so bleak.”

But Adickes did find his rhythm again, through hard work and determination. After a year at St. Joseph’s (New York), where he was an all-Skyline Conference pick, he transferred to Plattsburgh State.

These days, Adickes runs with a new appreciation for life, but he has retained the same giving spirit. He volunteers his time helping train autistic and disabled children to run, and he readily serves as a speaker sharing with younger students the importance of earning an education.

He also has friends who are battling cancer, and they serve as his inspiration as he actively raises funds to help find a cure.

“It turns out I’m better off than some people, and I should be grateful for that,” he said. “Here I can have a device that gets put in and I can live on and help people. Those are the people who really inspired me to stick with it and persevere through all the events and obstacles that life throws at you.”

Though he’s unlikely to forget all the lessons he learned from his ordeal, with the help of his grandmother, he designed a tattoo to remind him just how far he has come. The tattoo – written in kanji, Chinese characters used in Japanese writing – is composed of three simple, but powerful words: faith, strength, perseverance.

“These are my three mantras that I live by,” said Adickes. “You have to learn how to work with very little and turn it into very much. Very little is needed to live a happy life, I find.”

Adickes is a math and physics double major at Plattsburgh State also pursuing minors in coaching and athletic training. He aspires to teach and coach.