Team Agar to Kona Ironman

Dear friends, family, and community,

Please join us in showing our support for Jeff and Johnny Agar who are TeamAgar.

Johnny was born 3 pounds 7 ounces when the doctors let Jeff and Becki know that he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy; a disability that affects the messages from the brain to the muscles. Doctors told Johnny’s parents he would probably not walk and may not be able to talk. Jeff and Becki made the decision that day to raise Johnny as if he had no disability and therefore no limitations and chose to just love him no matter what he was able to do.

They had him involved in everything, always trying to make him feel included. Much to Johnny’s dismay, that meant even having to do chores around the house! Nothing was easy for him, and he never got things on the first try, but he never gave up. So, it was no surprise really that Johnny grew up believing he could do almost anything if he put in the hard work and stayed determined.

Johnny loved all sports but being in a wheelchair and having limited hand and arm control made it extremely difficult for him to participate. His dad started pushing Johnny in a jogger while running as a way for them to be involved in a sport together. Johnny LOVED it! Every weekend they would run in 5K races. And those races led to half marathons and marathons and triathlons solely because Jeff saw how much Johnny loved being among athletes. Jeff jokes that he “was hoping Johnny had gotten interested in stamp collecting instead”!

One day, Johnny decided he wanted to walk across the finish line in one of the races his dad pushed him in. At this point, Johnny had only ever walked 23 steps!! But true to their word, Jeff and Becki encouraged him to try, and helped him to train for his goal of walking a mile.

It took him 1 hour and 45 minutes to walk that first mile, and he was the last one to cross, but he did it surrounded by a hundred people who came back to cheer him on.

ESPN saw the local coverage and asked if they could feature Johnny on their E:60 show, and Johnny, having always wanted to be an athlete, gave them a resounding YES! That show led to them being asked to participate in “the most brutal one day endurance event on the planet” – the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii in 2016. The race is composed of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike, and a marathon (26.2 miles). And if they finished, Johnny would be able to walk them across the iconic finish line. With Johnny smiling from ear to ear, Jeff (and Becki) accepted the challenge because they knew it would be hypocritical of them to say “no”, since they had told Johnny his whole life to at least “try”.

So, try they did. After many months of grueling training, they made it through the swim and halfway through the bike but were unable to make the time cut off and got picked up from the race. Jeff was devastated he couldn’t get Johnny to the finish to walk it when Johnny said, “Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.” ❤️

Those words have certainly held true. They continued to train to get back to Kona someday and in the process caught the attention of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps and the sports apparel brand Under Armour. They recognized Johnny and Jeff’s tenacity and determination as what Under Armour was founded on and put Johnny in two commercials.

Fast forward to today. TeamAgar just recently heard the words they had been hoping to hear for the past 7 years…they were invited back to Kona to participate in the Ironman World Championships where they will have the opportunity to finish what they started and get Johnny to walk across the finish line!

This is a great opportunity for them and one that will require a team of support to help them to get there. We aim to ease the Agar family's financial burdens by launching this GoFundMe campaign. Your generous contributions will directly support the family’s needs as they take on this task for their son, Johnny, to live out his dream of becoming an athlete on the biggest stage in the world of triathlons. The lodging and logistics of getting to Hawaii, including all their equipment from Michigan is expensive and add to that the high costs involved in travel adding an extra layer of financial strain for TeamAgar, your contributions will help provide essential support, allowing Jeff, who will be training full time while carrying on his full-time job, to focus his goal on getting Johnny across the finish line. Together, we can help alleviate this burden, ensuring that the Agar family has the resources they need to make this opportunity happen.

Beyond financial contributions, we humbly request your continued prayers, love, and support for the Agar family that is TeamAgar. Please share this campaign with your network to raise awareness about the importance of love, dedication, and inclusion. By fostering a supportive community, we can strive to encourage others to go after their dreams.

Your generosity will be fuel for their training knowing they are embraced by a community that is behind them during every swim stroke, pedal, and step taken.

If you want to be part of TeamAgar and getting Johnny to the finish line, we would greatly appreciate your support! Thank you!