Rudy: My Story

by Rudy Ruettiger

  “Remember that conversation we had?” he asked me.

  Who could forget it? We were both locked in, dreaming of a bigger, better future. That conversation was one of those little steps in life that helps you reach your dream.

  “Yeah! Of course I remember,” I said.

  “Well good, because I want you to come talk to my boys. I want them to hear your story, from you. We’re playing Ohio State, Rudy, and if we win, we’re going to the Rose Bowl. Can you do that for me?”

  “Oh, man!” I said. “I’ll be there!”

  I went to Wisconsin the day before the big game, and I tagged along on the bus as the whole team went to a local movie theater together to see Rudy. Barry didn’t tell anyone who I was. He saved it. I was just the mystery man along for the ride.

  Sitting there watching that film with a bunch of top-notch football players was powerful. Like most young guys, they were a little talkative and goofing around with each other in the theater at first. But then we hooked them. The whole theater fell silent. They started to identify with the message.

  After it ended, we all went back to the Holiday Inn and huddled up in a conference room. Coach Alvarez talked to them about a few housekeeping things, and then he said, “Look, you saw the movie Rudy tonight. Now, I’d like to introduce you to the real Rudy. Rudy Ruettiger.”

  They all went silent. As I stood up I saw tears coming down some of the guys’ faces. It was all I could do not to cry right back at them! It’s a powerful thing to move people, and that’s exactly what that film did: it moved people.

  Barry’s setup meant the world.

  Before I even said a word, one of the seniors stood up and said, “I’m gonna give the best I can. My life is gonna go on that line tomorrow for every one of you guys!” Another senior stood up and said, “Me too!” Then another. Boom, boom, boom! The energy in the room just exploded as those guys pumped each other up. It was a real inspirational moment for all of them, and all I did was stand there. It was a big lesson for me that amplified the idea of properly setting up my appearances. When the power of the film was present, and when the introduction was heartfelt, just my presence would have an impact on the audience. For that football team, the day before such a big game, it’s as if knowing that I was real, simply knowing that I existed, drove home the whole Rudy message to a point that far exceeded anything they felt when they left the theater.

  The next day, those players gave it all they had. But Ohio State was a mighty foe. With about twenty seconds left in the game, it was all tied up. Wisconsin had the ball. They had managed to push within twenty-five yards of the end zone, and they had a great kicker lined up and ready to go. All they needed was that field goal to win and they’d clinch their spot in the Rose Bowl. The dream game!

  But it all went wrong. Just as he went to kick the ball, Ohio State’s defensive end came around, and Wisconsin’s offense missed him. He leapt up and blocked the field goal. The clock ran out. The tie game would stand. Getting into the Rose Bowl would now, in part, be out of their hands.

  Everybody’s heads went down and they headed into the locker room in a funk. But here’s where Barry Alvarez stands out as one of the great ones. “Get your heads up,” he told his players. “You won that football game. They didn’t beat you. And you know what? They’re gonna get their behinds kicked next week at Michigan State, and we’re gonna beat Indiana, and we’re going to the Rose Bowl!”

  Who knew if any of that was really going to happen, but the point was that Barry Alvarez wasn’t about to let his guys get down after holding their own against one of the strongest teams going. He’s a dreamer. He’s a doer. And he’s a great coach.

  His prediction unfolded exactly as he said it would. Wisconsin wound up playing in the Rose Bowl—and they won.

  Watching that game on TV, knowing that my movie, and my story, had a little something to do with giving those guys the extra push they needed to get the job done was an amazing feeling. Knowing a guy like Barry Alvarez who never gave up on his dream, even though he got derailed for a while and was working as a police officer before going back to the game he loved and becoming the head coach he always wanted to be—that kept a fire in my belly. I wanted to stay in touch with people like him for the rest of my life.

  Thankfully word of that first failed school speech didn’t spread anywhere. In fact, a division of Reader’s Digest called QSB, which does fund-raising in schools all over the country, wound up hiring me to tour and speak to schools all over America for a full two years after Rudy came out. Two years! And that was on top of the various calls that came in through speakers’ bureaus around the country, from big corporations and sports teams looking to fly me in for an afternoon. I never had to seek out a speech. Ever. Never had to market myself. Because of the power of the film, and the message of the film, the calls came in to me.

  When the Reader’s Digest tour ended, I was contacted by Amway to give speeches all over the country as well. Another steady contract. A deal that would keep me on the road for years. I was blown away.

  The reward for my preparation, the reward for being ready to tackle a new career after my dream of a movie came true, the reward for not giving up after my first failed attempts, was a career far bigger than anything I ever imagined. Suddenly, I was making more money than I ever had in my life. Thousands of dollars per speech. Thousands. In time, I found that I could make more money from a single corporate speech than my father made in a month at the oil refinery. I could make more money in a single week, if I hustled, than I used to be proud to make in an entire year! I had no idea that speakers were paid so well when I got started. And I was blown away by the fact that I could get paid the same amount of money for a speech no matter how long the speech was. If they wanted me for forty-five minutes, or for fifteen minutes, what they were basically paying me for was the impact of my presence and the inconvenience of getting me to whatever location I needed to get to on their schedule.

  Perhaps the most amazing thing about the whole endeavor was that the money wasn’t my motivation! My motivation was to inspire people, plain and simple. This wasn’t chasing the almighty dollar through some job I didn’t love so that I could make ends meet and then hopefully find a way to go after my dream. This was the dream. The money came along almost as a side effect.

  Why? I wondered. Why did that happen?

  It’s a question I would ponder long and hard for years to come. A question that would eventually be answered, but like many things in life, would only come to me after I made a few mistakes.

  19

  Receiving the Message

  Inspiration is a powerful thing. The power that one person can have to influence dozens, hundreds, thousands, even millions of lives is amazing. We recognize it in the great inspirational figures throughout history, from Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King Jr.; from Mother Teresa all the way back to Moses.

  And yet, in many ways, one of the great sources of inspiration I see in life comes from a much humbler place. It comes from the everyday pursuit of dreams. It comes from the remarkable ripple effect that one person’s dreams can have on the people around them. What I realized after Rudy hit theaters, and after I started traveling the country speaking to people from all walks of life, ages, and backgrounds, is that the inspiration of the Rudy story had spread far and wide long before the movie was even made.

  It’s a strange thing, because I didn’t set out to try to inspire anyone! I was seeking inspiration. I needed inspiration. I craved it every step of the way. It took tremendous amounts of inspiration for me to find the strength to get out of the power plant, to get out of Joliet, and to pursue my dreams to begin with. I hope no one mistakes my message as anything but one intended in the most humble way. I’m in awe of what happened. I’m constantly amazed by it. Because what happened, with every step I took toward my own dreams, is that other people were inspired to chase their dreams too; to break free of the confines of their own goofy thoughts (as I like to call them); a
nd to seek out the paths that God might open up to them once they took a leap of faith—even if that “leap” was just one small first step toward the life they wanted to lead.

  There were even people who used my dreams and the story of the pursuit of my dreams as a direct way to inspire others. They used me and my story as a life lesson, as part of their own personal “motivational speeches.” That was an astounding thing for me to discover.

  Remember Pat Sullivan? He was the school counselor back in Joliet who helped me put my transcripts together to get into Holy Cross after I got out of the navy, just after Siskel died. He believed in me and gave me hope and helped me uncover the benefits of the GI Bill that would pay for my education. He came into my life and played such a powerful role. Well, come to find out, he had been using me as an inspirational example to dozens and dozens of students for a full twenty years before Rudy hit theaters! He would tell my story to students who were struggling, students who weren’t the “college-bound” type, and use my example as a way to encourage them to go to community college. For twenty years, he had used my story of walking into Holy Cross unannounced, and then jumping from Holy Cross to Notre Dame, as a way to inspire supposedly unteachable, untrainable kids (like me) to chase higher-education dreams of their own. How awesome is that? Do you know how good it feels to learn that something you accomplished has been having that kind of influence on dozens of other kids over the course of decades? It blew me away. Of course, he continued using my story for those same purposes to even greater effect once the movie came out. The added cache of the movie helped him make his point even stronger. But the simple fact that I did it was enough to inspire dozens of kids under his care to accomplish educational dreams they had previously been told were impossible to achieve.

  The ripple effect of my dreams hit closer to home as well: after I got into Notre Dame, all of my thirteen siblings—every one of them— wound up going on to some form of higher education. For most, it meant stepping foot into community college, but some of them went on to four-year schools as well, and all of them—without exception—became successful adults with successful careers and families. I attribute most of that success to my parents. I truly do. There was something perfect about the way they raised us, as tough as the circumstances were. They did the best they could. And they loved us with all of their hearts. That made all the difference in the world. My role wasn’t a big one, yet it was significant. What I did was open the door. I allowed my siblings to peek into a world they didn’t really know existed for them. I allowed them to see beyond the preordained life of factory work and hard labor that had been laid in front of them from the beginning. By chasing my dream, I opened up new dreams for all of them.

  I want to focus specifically on my brother Francis for a moment. He’s the one who was always most like me, who struggled through school with some learning disabilities and an attitude that sometimes got him into trouble. He’s also the one who told me directly how much I inspired him by going to Notre Dame and landing a spot on that football team. I inspired him to chase his dream of turning the little home gym he set up in our garage into a business, Rudy’s Gym, which opened and became a big, big success. It’s still going strong today! The thing is, Francis also faced challenges in his adult life and wound up taking on a mid-life career change that would serve as an inspiration to lots of other people too.

  Francis was built like me—short and stocky. I took that body and applied it to football, and later boxing, but he applied it to weight lifting. An older friend of his saw him working out way back in the early 1970s and said, “You’re pretty strong for a little guy. Want to compete?” That little encouragement was all it took. Francis became a champion weight lifter, competing all over the US and making quite a name for himself in the sport. In fact, he got his painting up on the mural of famous Joliet sports figures that graces the side of one of the big train trestles in town. It was awesome! The whole family was so proud of him for that. As I mentioned earlier, my picture isn’t up there. So in that sense, Francis is the more famous one in our family!

  Weight lifting didn’t provide a big living, of course, and running Rudy’s Gym wasn’t all that profitable either, even though it was a big success. So Francis did the typical Joliet thing and took a job at the power plant after high school. Sound familiar? Well, guess what? That job that was supposed to be so secure, the right thing to do to support your life and family, went away one day. He was laid off. I always wondered: Had I stayed on at the power plant, would I have been laid off too? It’s strange to look at these things with the clarity of hindsight. Perhaps if I hadn’t quit the power plant job, the job would have quit me.

  Francis went bouncing around to any number of odd jobs after that: driving a Canfield’s pop truck, working at Union Oil with our dad, eventually taking a security job at the mall. One day, at the age of thirty-one, he heard that the Joliet Police Department was testing for new recruits, and he pep-talked the other mall cops into going and taking that test together. They were all good guys. They were all smart. They all knew what they were doing. Why couldn’t they go and get jobs as real cops? That was his thinking.

  Of course, all of the other guys were younger than him, and there wound up being a thousand people who took that test in the greater Joliet area—that’s 999 competitors for one of just a handful of open slots at the police academy! Most people would tell you not to bother, right? Especially at the old age of thirty-one.

  Well, guess what? In part because Francis was older and had more experience in the world, he had lots of common sense to draw upon—and he wound up acing the test. He ended up number one on that list of one thousand guys. He enrolled at the police academy and threw himself into it. He loved it. The late start made him appreciate every minute of it and maybe even have more passion for it than some of the young recruits who hadn’t figured out what they wanted out of life yet.

  “If I’d have started as a kid, I’d have never made it,” Francis once told me. I feel the exact same way about Notre Dame. There’s no way I would have made it through that school without all of my experiences in the navy, at the power plant, and at Holy Cross that came before it. No way! Perhaps there’s a good lesson in that.

  Our parents never pressured any of us to go to college. We all chose it on our own. We all went because we wanted to go. And that made all the difference in the world. Francis has probably been through more years of schooling now as a cop than any of the rest of us. But he loves it. There’s a purpose to that education. It’s not just throwing money at school when you’re not interested in what you’re studying. That whole approach to four-year colleges, as some sort of an automatic (and very expensive) step in life, just doesn’t make very much sense to me. I saw too many kids at Notre Dame who weren’t passionate about it, who were wasting their parents’ money by blowing off classes and partying all the time. What’s the point of that? Doesn’t that constant production of passionless kids in our education system hurt the country? Think about it. We’re churning out thousands and thousands of kids every year who have no inspiration, no dream; all they have is just a bunch of meaningless education that leads nowhere, because they didn’t choose to go after that education passionately, of their own free will.

  Francis had never picked up a gun in his life before he went to the police academy (except for a shotgun when he went hunting a couple of times in his early twenties). He had never shot anything at a target or range before. Today? He’s a first-rate sniper. The best of the best. The whole thing’s astounding! Plus, he combined his weight-lifting abilities, Rudy’s Gym, and his life on the police force to influence all kinds of troubled kids in Joliet—not only through law enforcement, but in getting kids passionate about taking care of their bodies and teaching them how to be strong and confident in life. The ripple effect of his pursuit of his passion, and his later-in-life switch in careers, is massive. In fact, I think it could probably make a movie in and of itself! It may not have the cache and majesty of Not
re Dame, but it’s still one heck of a story. There are lots of stories like that in families all across this country. We need to pay attention to those stories. We need to pay attention to that inspiration that’s happening all around us. To learn from it, and feed off of it.

  I may have made a movie. I may speak about my life story all over the country, but I can honestly say that Francis’ story inspires me as much or more than I ever inspired him. It’s awesome.

  Of course, all of us siblings were inspired most by our parents. Watching them through the years, watching my dad reach retirement and follow through on his own dreams was a spectacular thing for all of us. He always told me, “Work now, play later,” and I mostly rejected that philosophy—at least in my youth. But my dad followed that rule of his to a very successful end.

  After my parents spent all of those pennies my mom had been saving to purchase a little cabin property on a lake in Wisconsin, they slowly but surely turned that place into the home of their dreams. My dad used his ever-resourceful hands to expand and completely remodel the main home and to build himself a brand-new garage from the ground up while adding a second cabin to house the kids and growing legions of grandkids who came up to visit. My strong little wisp of a mom was up there hammering nails and ripping walls apart right with him, while simultaneously turning the basement level into a museum-quality shrine to her family.

  All fourteen of our First Communion portraits are placed on the wall at the bottom of the stairs . . . right next to all of our diplomas. It’s quite a sight. The whole basement is chock full of photos and memorabilia from each of our big endeavors in life: trophies, awards, wedding photos, uniforms, medals, you name it! And of course, everything in that entire house has its place. My mom’s sense of order never went away, even when there weren’t any more kids around full-time.