Rudy (29 page)

The guy looked at the name on my door as he walked in, and he stuck out his hand. “Rudy,” he said, “I graduated when you graduated. You fought in the Bengal Bouts and played in that football game. Boy, you were a real inspiration around campus.”

Spring had sprung.

The fact that a fellow graduate remembered me and thought of me as an inspiration reminded me what I needed to do. And from that moment forward, I once again began my quest to turn my movie dream into a reality.

I contacted all sorts of old friends and various Notre Dame alumni, and found that almost anyone I spoke to was willing to try to help if they could. I wound up making trips to California on the weekends, to take meetings and lunches and coffees with all sorts of Hollywood characters—friends of friends of various alumni, none of which seemed all that interested in helping me, and instead wanted to know if I could help them. It struck me that my career as an insurance salesman had prepared me for all of that rejection. I heard “no” a hundred times a day, for years, so I didn't let any of the negativity get me down. I just chalked it up to experience and learned firsthand what that town was all about: Hollywood was full of dreamers and not a lot of doers, it seemed.

In the meantime I started holding regular gatherings at my new condo. I had sort of an open-door policy on Thursday nights, and whoever wanted to stop by was welcome. We'd throw on some barbecue, watch a football game on TV, watch movies, and just sit around talking—whoever showed up. My old pal D-Bob was always there. So was his buddy Paul Bergan, a great educator and renowned high school football coach in Michigan (who would be inducted into the Michigan High School Football Coaches' Hall of Fame in 1991), whom I had met when I was a student and became great friends with as an adult. Young, old, alumni, a bunch of the current players from the Notre Dame team who wanted to get away from it all and blow off some steam, and even out-of-towners and well-known individuals would hear about Thursdays at Rudy's and want to stop by the condo: guys like Jerome Bettis, Roger Clemens, and President Ford's son, Jack Ford. It was amazing who'd come walking through that door, and the connections that were made. My buddy LeShane Saddler, a student and football player at Notre Dame at the time (who became a high school teacher and who now works in the Notre Dame admissions office), met a girl named Kellie who lived upstairs from me, and the two of them wound up getting married. So the connections ran deep! I felt like some sort of matchmaker, like I'd helped shape this guy's future just by giving him a place to hang out. My condo was simply a good place to relax, have fun, and talk. And almost every week we'd wind up talking about my story, envisioning the movie, imagining what actors could play which roles. All of a sudden there were a whole bunch of people dreaming about the movie version of my life. It was wild.

Some of those friends and acquaintances would open up about their own dreams too, from playing in the NFL, to buying a house in one of the more exclusive parts of town—whatever it was, everyone knew that Rudy's condo was a judgment-free zone, and a place where dreams could be spoken out loud. There was magic in that. Looking ahead, making plans for things that weren't quite real yet all of us were aiming for. It was almost like a lowbrow version of the “salons” I'd read about in school— like back in the 1800s, where a bunch of intellectuals or authors would gather around and share ideas and stories, and inspire each other to do great work. Only we didn't think of it in those kinds of terms. We called it “Chalk Talk.” We'd be sitting there with a big white board, sketching ideas for my film, or whatever the topic of the day was. It was kind of like sitting in the locker room in front of a blackboard, planning plays for upcoming games. The games weren't real yet. You never knew how things would unfold in real time, under real circumstances, but that didn't stop you from planning. You'd grab a piece of chalk and go ahead and set things into motion as if they were real, right there in that moment, and whoever held the chalk held the floor. That's exactly what “Chalk Talks” at my condo were all about—except we weren't talking about a game. We were talking about our real lives, our real goals, and our real ambitions, no matter how far-out those ambitions seemed to be.

I also started talking up my movie idea around town again—to anyone who would listen, from the mailman to a local hotel manager. They all loved hearing about it. People get caught up in dreaming. We all love to see enthusiasm in someone else, and so many people I talked to got caught up in this positive, forward-thinking attitude I let flood back into my life. I felt like I had people rooting for me everywhere I went. Even at work: I'd wind up talking about my movie to the sales team, to certain customers, with clients on the phone.

One guy who wound up being a customer of mine was an assistant coach at Notre Dame. A guy by the name of Barry Alvarez. He had heard of me before he came into the dealership, and he asked me, “Why are you selling cars?”

“'Cause I'm gonna make a movie someday,” I said. That was my answer! I knew this car thing was just paying the bills. I knew it.

“What kind of a movie?” he asked. And I told him: not just a movie about my personal story, my life's journey, but of the inspiration behind that story, and the message I hoped to share with other kids who are looking for a way to move forward in life.

“Wow,” he said. “You're really gonna do that. I can feel it.”

I loved getting that kind of support.

“Well, what are you gonna do, Coach? I bet you're not going to be an assistant coach your whole life,” I said.

“Nope, I'm gonna be a head coach. I'm a dreamer, like you, Rudy. Just watch me.”

Those were the kind of conversations I'd have. The movie dream just followed me wherever I went, all the time. And it felt great—despite all those fruitless trips to Hollywood and the lack of what most people would consider any real progress toward making that dream come true.

I'm not sure what was driving me. It was just a feeling in my gut. One of those gut feelings that I've spoken about before. Those gut feelings that I firmly believe are the voice of God, and need to be heeded. I felt as if I was doing the right thing. I felt like I was making progress. I trusted that feeling.

Well, lo and behold, that feeling was right.

One day, one of those random people I had shared my story with, a local hotel manager, called me up on the phone. “Rudy, my brother's coming to town and you need to meet him.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, to be honest, he was roommates with Angelo Pizzo and David Anspaugh back at Indiana University. Do you know who they are?” he asked.

I had no idea.

“They're the guys who wrote and directed the movie
Hoosiers
,” he told me. “I got talking to him about you, and he thinks you have a valid story to tell.”

I just about dropped the phone. I could hardly believe it. Here I'd been messing around going back and forth from Scranton to Hollywood getting involved with the wrong people for years, and this guy right here in South Bend had a connection to the team behind
Hoosiers
? Are you kidding me? It blew my mind!

“I'd love to meet him!” I said.

The meeting happened, and before I knew it, I was back on a plane to California, trekking out to Santa Monica to meet Angelo Pizzo— the
Hoosiers
' screenwriter—at a little Italian restaurant. I sat at Louise's Trattoria on the corner of 10th and Montana and waited. And waited. And
waited
. I sat there for three hours! I had been stood up.

I couldn't believe it.
Was this one more dead end?
I walked outside to get some air. That's when I saw this older mailman walking by with the biggest, friendliest smile on his face. L.A.'s not necessarily full of the most genuinely friendly people in the world. I don't think that's any secret. So seeing this big, friendly smile surprised me. And to tell you the truth, he reminded me a lot of Rudy, the old janitor at the ACC. “Look at that smile!” I said to him as he passed by. He kind of laughed and looked at me, and I guess he could tell right away that I wasn't the usual L.A. type either. “Where you from?” he said. I told him, and he told me he was from Michigan. Two midwesterners, crossing paths in La-La Land. “What are you here for?” he asked, and I told him the whole story—of how excited I was about this big meeting with Angelo Pizzo, the writer of
Hoosiers
, and how he told me to meet him at this place right here in his neighborhood and how he hadn't shown up. Well, you'll never guess what happened next. Even though he could have gotten in a lot of trouble, that mailman saw how genuine I was, and how passionate I was, and he walked me down around the corner and led me right to Pizzo's front door.

Angelo was surprised to see me. “How did you find me?” he asked.

“Never mind that,” I said. “You're late for lunch.”

He had forgotten. He had been up all night writing. “Look,” he said. “No offense. I know that you probably got excited about coming out here to talk to me, but I'm not going to write another sports movie. Ever. And on top of that, I hate Notre Dame!”

I was taken aback. But I also hadn't come all this way to be turned away so quickly. If you haven't noticed, I don't take no very easily.

“Well,” I said, “you could come to lunch at least.”

He paused for a moment, looked in my eyes, and said, “Yeah, I'll go to lunch.”

Back at the restaurant, I avoided talking about the movie. We just shot the breeze and talked about our backgrounds. I learned a lot about Angelo that day—his family background, how his parents wanted him to become a doctor but he was sort of the rebellious one, swimming against the stream and trying to find his own way in the world against a whole slew of obstacles. The fact that he had come to Hollywood and found his own way to success was inspiring to me. I could see that there was a fire in him. A confidence. He hadn't let anyone tell him no. That aspect of his personality reminded me of me! I kept thinking to myself,
He's the perfect guy to write this story!

I shared just enough about my journey and he already knew enough about my journey to know it was a good story. But he didn't give me any kind of affirmative answer before I left town. He basically left me with the same impression that he gave me right off the bat: that he didn't want to write another sports movie, ever; and that he really, really despised Notre Dame.

I flew back to South Bend with a broken heart. My hopes were so high on the way out there. It seemed like fate, having that introduction out of the blue.
How could he not want to write this movie? He could have another
Hoosiers
on his hands. Who wouldn't want to strike lightning twice like that?
I wondered.

It was early December, and leaving sunny Santa Monica behind for the gray-skied chill of South Bend certainly didn't warm me up any. It felt like my chances had gone cold. My whole attitude fell cold. When you come so close and then take a blow like that, it's hard to recover. It's certainly hard to keep up that positive attitude everyone around me had gotten used to. I remember talking to myself on the way into the car dealership that Monday, reminding myself that the dream wasn't dead, that so many people believed in my movie, that I had to do everything I could to get my positivity back—and most of all that I needed to set those bad feelings aside and really give everything I had to selling cars. I was good at that, I thought: focusing on what had to be done in the moment. I felt focused as I hung up my coat and sat down behind my desk, ready to tackle the day.

No sooner did I plant my behind in that chair than my phone rang. It was the owner. He wanted to see me in his office. He had never really called me into his office that way before. My stomach dropped. It felt like I was being called into the principal's office at school for some reason— and I honestly had no idea what that reason might be.

“Rudy,” he said, “I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to let you go.”

“What?!”

“Your focus is not on my business. Your focus is on making this movie. You're talking about it, thinking of it. I don't need half of you here. I need all of you.”

I knew he was right. I wasn't passionate about being in car sales, just like I wasn't passionate about selling insurance. I just couldn't believe his timing.

“It's December. It's almost Christmas,” I said.

Right here's where he taught me a lesson. “Life is tough, isn't it, Rudy?” he said.

“But I don't have any money saved. I've been spending my money! What am I supposed to do?”

“Rudy, life is hard,” he said. “But I have a feeling you're gonna get that movie made. I think I'd just be hurting you by keeping you here. You need to give it your all, be 100 percent committed. So you go do that. You go get that movie made.”

I was really ticked off. In a way, I was more ticked off at myself for knowing he was right! After the whole experience with Frank Capra Jr., what was the lesson?
I was the one who had to get this movie made
. So why wasn't I 100 percent committed to that pursuit? Why was I trying to juggle it around a career in the car business? Well, the same reason everyone does what they do, I suppose. We all have needs. We need to make money. We need to live day-to-day. I dunno. I felt so lost and confused at that moment, I had no idea what to think. Had I made all the wrong choices? Was I a fool? Was that feeling in my gut just plain wrong? I questioned everything. My past. My present. My whole mind-set. I questioned my faith. Everything.

My first concern was how in the heck I was gonna make my mortgage payment the next month, so I went to the condominium association and asked if I could take over maintenance at our development. I told them all about my experience at Notre Dame, and thankfully they went for it. So that became my job: shoveling snow, being the fix-it guy, and when the spring of the brand-new decade—the 1990s—came around, I was the guy out mowing the grass to earn my keep. It's like I was right back in my freshman year at St. Joe Hall at Holy Cross—only my dream of making a movie about my life felt even further away than my dreams of playing Notre Dame football ever did.