Read Rudy Online

Authors: Rudy Ruettiger

Tags: #ebook, #book

Rudy

BOOK: Rudy
7Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Praise for
Rudy

“This book—Rudy's story—is for anyone who has ever been an underdog.”

S
EAN
A
STIN
A
CTOR

“Every business leader and entrepreneur in America can learn from Rudy's lessons of persistence and perseverance.”

D
AN
H
ESSE
CEO, S
PRINT

“The power of Rudy isn't just his words or his story. The power of Rudy is his message—a message of selflessness, perseverance, and hope that we all need to hear and remember.”

D
AVID
M
ONAHAN
P
RINCIPLE
, C
OLONY
C
APITAL
LLC

“I was commissioned to work on
Rudy
in 1993—a date I will never forget because the real Rudy Ruettiger interacted in the making of the movie and shared his passion of never giving up, inspiring all of us. Recently, Rudy reentered my life and came to speak in my class of filmmakers and composers. The energy of his light fulfilling dreams created a memory we will remember forever.”

K
ENNETH
H
ALL
A
SSOCIATE
P
ROFESSOR
, USC S
CHOOL OF
C
INEMATIC
A
RTS

“If life is all about the journey, then Rudy's story is a journey of hope. I'm thrilled to see him share his full story with the world in this exciting new book.”

J
OHN
E. A
DAMS
CEO, C
ENEGENICS

“In real life, just like the movie, Rudy proves he can take the hits, and keep on coming back.”

A
NGELO
P
IZZO
W
RITER AND
P
RODUCER

“As a young kid I had a front row seat for one of the all-time great underdog triumphs. Rudy took me everywhere . . . the locker room, the practice field, the broom closet that served as his dorm room . . . constantly telling me how he would run out of that tunnel one day. When no one else believed, and I mean no one, Rudy did. I was there when he was carried off the field on his teammates' shoulders. Years later, I'm still inspired.”

T
ERRY
G
ANNON
N
ETWORK
S
PORTSCASTER
M
EMBER OF
J
IM
V
ALVANO'S
1983 NC S
TATE
N
ATIONAL
C
HAMPIONSHIP
T
EAM

“The Rudy message never dies. In the lessons of his life, he reminds each of us how possible it is to rise up against all odds.”

B
RIAN
K
ILMEADE
F
OX
N
EWS
, N
EW
Y
ORK

“Rudy's book bursts with timeless truths and principles that, when followed, can help you succeed in anything you do in life. I highly recommend this compelling read to all who are in pursuit of a fulfilling life professionally and personally.”

S
EAN
W
OLFINGTON
C
HAIRMAN AND
CEO
OF THE
W
OLFINGTON
C
OMPANIES


Never give up on your dreams
. That's the message that Rudy shares from his blue collar background to the Notre Dame field and beyond.”

D
AVE
T
REMBLEY
M
ANAGER
, B
ALTIMORE
O
RIOLES
(2007–2010)

“Rudy is about winning, in the biggest sense of the word. Not just winning on the field, or winning at the box office, or winning in business—but winning in life.”

R
OB
F
RIED
P
RODUCER

“Just as
Rudy
was a film about so much more than football, this book is about so much more than the life story of Rudy Ruettiger. It's a book about hope. It's a book about inspiration. It's a book that readers can turn back to again and again in the face of life's challenges to remind themselves how to work even harder to turn their own dreams into reality.”

S
TEVE
L
ARSON
CEO, E
ID
P
ASSPORT

“This isn't the story of one man, one dream, one college, or one football team. It's a story for everyone who's ever had a dream. It's a story of hope. It's a story of perseverance. Rudy is for anyone who ever wanted to know what it's really like to make dreams come true.”

R
EAR
A
DMIRAL
K
EVIN
D
ELANEY
U
NITED
S
TATES
N
AVY
(
RETIRED
)


Rudy: My Story
is a combination of honesty and heartfelt truths of ‘never giving up'. It is a touching rendition of total inspiration.”

J
ON
J
ANNOTTA
CEO,
WWW.U-INSPIRE.COM

Rudy

MY STORY

Rudy

MY STORY

by DANIEL “RUDY” RUETTIGER
WITH
MARK DAGOSTINO

© 2012 by Rudy Ruettiger

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Thomas Nelson, Inc. titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fundraising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ ThomasNelson.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ruettiger, Rudy.
Rudy : my story / Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger with Mark Dagostino.
p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-8499-4839-8 (hardcover)

1. Ruettiger, Rudy. 2. College football players--United States--Biography. 3. Dyslexics--
United States--Biography. 4. University of Notre Dame--Football. 5. Notre Dame Fighting
Irish (Football team) I. Dagostino, Mark. II. Title.
GV939.R845A3 2012
796.332092--dc23
[B]
2012016188

Printed in the United States of America

12 13 14 15 16 QG 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to my family.

Contents

Introduction

Part I: Growing Up

1. On the Ball

2. Friday Night Lights

3. Sea Change

4. Reading the Signs

Part II: Blue & Gold

5. Holy Cross

6. Kneeling at the Grotto

7. In the Ring

8. Walking On

9. Living the Dream

10. Still Fighting

11. Never Quit

12. Twenty-Seven Seconds

Part III: Up Against the Red Velvet Ropes

13. Rocky Too

14. Chalk Talk and Hollywood Dreams

15. One Hurdle at a Time

16. Making Rudy

Part IV: Dream Bigger

17. Red Carpets and White Gloves

18. Sharing the Message

19. Receiving the Message

20. Life Lessons

21. Hope

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Photos

Introduction

“In life, it's not about how hard you get hit. It's about how many times you get back up and how hard you're willing to keep fighting for your dreams.”

It is amazing how a movie can touch your life.
I remember watching the powerful film
Rocky
just after I graduated from the University of Notre Dame, followed by
Rocky II
a couple of years after that. I remember that overwhelming feeling of just wanting to go run up some stairs somewhere and throw my hands in the air as I left the theater. That feeling that I could do anything. That I could conquer the world.

The funny thing was, I
had
conquered the world—or at least a small part of it. I had already had a
Rocky
moment in my real life. I had already accomplished more than anyone else ever dreamed I could. Like Rocky Balboa, I had proved all the naysayers wrong. I won. In my own way, on my own path, I won. Me! A stocky, messed-up kid from Joliet, Illinois, whom some people doubted would graduate high school, had gone on to play for the University of Notre Dame football team and to earn myself a top-notch college education.

And I was just getting started.

Watching
Rocky
, and later the outstanding film
Hoosiers
, made me think about my own story of perseverance. Anyone I told my story to was bowled over. “Your life is like a movie!” they'd tell me. I was an insurance agent at the time. I didn't know a thing about Hollywood. But after enough people said it, I started to believe it—and I called on my inner Rocky to see if I could go do something about it.

A few long years and countless struggles later, my life's story became a movie all its own: the 1993 film
Rudy
.

All of a sudden I was invited to give pep talks in locker rooms all over America. Corporate giants brought me into their boardrooms to fire up their sales teams. I was invited to the White House for a private screening. To this day, clips from
Rudy
play during the seventh-inning stretch at Yankee Stadium and at countless sporting events around the world. The film tops lists of the most inspirational movies of all time, and if you turn on your TV, chances are you can find it airing on one cable station or another nearly every week throughout the year.

Rudy
became something much bigger than me. Much bigger than I ever dreamed.

Today, nearly twenty years after the film was made, wherever I go, people talk to me about how they call on their “inner Rudy” to find the strength to follow their dreams. People line up at events and appearances to tell me about their own real-life Rudy moments—the way I used to refer to
Rocky
moments in my life, or my own “inner Rocky.” It's astounding. My name,
my story
, has become synonymous with inspiration. And over the years, I've asked myself, “Why?”

I wasn't some super-talented kid who rose up from nothing and beat the odds to make it to the Super Bowl. I wasn't some guy with a ninety-mile-per-hour fastball who broke into major league baseball in his forties. I was a lower middle-class kid who suffered through school with undiagnosed dyslexia, who was hard-headed enough to find a side door into the University of Notre Dame to earn my degree and to dress and play for the last twenty-seven seconds of a football game my senior year. Twenty-seven seconds! That's it! And that was the point. A point that became utterly clear to me as the years went by: what Rudy represents isn't some far-fetched Hollywood story. This isn't some impossible, once-in-a-lifetime fantasy that most people can never attain. It's not the story of Michael Jordan or Peyton Manning—individuals with extreme talent they could build upon. The wisdom of age has taught me that the power of my story, the power of the inspiration that so many people feel when they watch the film
Rudy
comes from the fact that at heart, I'm just an “Average Joe.” Anyone could accomplish the sort of dream I tackled. The short kid. The fat kid. The smart kid. The struggling kid. The frustrated worker. The bored-to-death businessman. The housewife. The husband. Anyone. The moral of the Rudy story is that anyone with a dream can make that dream a reality—as long as they're willing to put in the hard work and heart it takes to get there.

BOOK: Rudy
7Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Castle Spellbound by John DeChancie
This Other Eden by Marilyn Harris
Decoded by Jay-Z
A Real Cowboy Never Says No by Stephanie Rowe
Bóvedas de acero by Isaac Asimov
Lamplight in the Shadows by Robert Jaggs-Fowler
Out of the Deep by Gloria Skurzynski