Rudy (40 page)

Inside, I couldn't believe who I ran into: LeShane Saddler. The former Notre Dame football player used to hang out at my condo, met his wife at our Thursday night hang-outs, and always participated in chalk talks with lots of enthusiasm and gusto. I couldn't believe it. He was happy to see me, and I was surprised to run into him in that setting. It turns out he works for the admissions department now. He took me back to his office and we wound up talking with some of the admissions folks, who were really glad to meet me. And they told me something that no one had told me before: that a vast number of applications and essays they receive from high school seniors all over America today mention
Rudy
as one of the reasons they're applying to Notre Dame. I couldn't believe it! I knew the Rudy Awards were going strong, of course, and that at least some students out there were getting the
Rudy
message, but were high school students really still watching that film in a way that was influencing their college decisions?

That's when LeShane revealed something really cool as well. After graduation, he had spent thirteen years as a high school teacher, teaching US history. And for each of those thirteen years, he had shown
Rudy
in his classroom. Sometimes, before he would screen it, his students would pipe up and say, “What does this football movie have to do with US history?”

He would tell them, “This movie isn't about football. This movie's about dreams, it's about perseverance, it's about heart, it's about endurance, it's about overcoming the odds, and that's a story that you're going to see repeated throughout the history of this country.”

Man! That really fired me up.

At one point I made my way across campus and headed to the brand-new football facilities—an entire building dedicated to the football team's training and locker room that didn't exist when I was in school. It was kind of funny as I walked up toward the entrance. There were a few football players standing outside the door in their street clothes. Practice had just ended a short while ago, apparently, and they were hanging out chitchatting before heading wherever they had to go. As I approached the door, one of the bigger guys who completely towered over me said, “Can I help you? You can't go in there.” I smiled at him and introduced myself, and in an instant his whole attitude changed. Clearly my legacy was still strong here. All of those other players standing around asked if they could take pictures with me, and they pulled out their cell phones. I asked if anyone would mind if I took a look around. I just wanted to see what they had done to the place, and that big guy who stopped me suddenly became my tour guide.

Lo and behold, just inside the doorway, in a spot that every one of those players would pass on the way in and out of that locker room every single day, there was a plaque on the wall commemorating
Rudy
.

The Notre Dame locker room today is probably finer than any locker room in the NFL. It's carpeted, with fine wood lockers and a red-velvet rope cordoning off the big “ND” on the floor, so no one accidentally steps on that mighty symbol. The training facilities were gorgeous and staffed to the hilt. The hallways were filled with statues and trophies and memorabilia. It was awesome. I hope those kids realize how fortunate they are! It didn't even smell like a locker room in there.

Outside once again, walking between the grand old buildings, my eyes were drawn up toward heaven and I started to feel that glory. I took a walk over to the stadium where someone from the grounds crew happened to be around to unlock the gate and let me take a walk inside. I went all the way up in the bleachers, toward the top, to that spot where I used to sit and look down on the field, dreaming of playing someday. I went down and walked into the tunnel, turning back to look at the field from the vantage point where I had once stood with all of the excitement in the world, raring to run out and lead my team onto that field; then I turned the other way to see Touchdown Jesus perfectly framed through the far end of the tunnel.

In that moment, I thought of my father. It was just outside of that tunnel where he had given me his first hug.

I could hardly believe he had given me his last just a few weeks earlier.

I didn't sleep well that night. The bed was uncomfortable. The room was too hot. My mind simply wouldn't turn off and relax. I tossed and turned, thinking about what was next for me. I had lots of speaking engagements lined up. I knew I would have a chance to move past some of the mistakes, and that I would find a way to recover financially as long as I stayed focused on my dream. But was the dream of continuing to spread the
Rudy
message even working? I hoped to spread the message far beyond the business world, far beyond the sports world, to kids from all walks of life. But whenever I looked around at young people today, addicted to video games, suffering from obesity and diabetes like never before in a society that has an impossibly hard time creating jobs, I couldn't help but wonder: Is there any hope left? Are these kids today getting the message they need in order to survive and thrive in life? Are they getting the wisdom and inspiration they need to help save our country?

I just needed a sign. Something to tell me I was still pointed in the right direction. That my dream was still worthwhile. That my dream was still having an impact.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again right here: sometimes when you're looking for something, asking for something, even praying for something, the answer falls right into your lap. As long as you're ready to receive it, God's gifts come when you least expect them.

I took a jog the next day and spent some more time wandering around campus—into the library, into the student center. Late that afternoon, I sat down to grab a coffee outside the Notre Dame bookstore. The sun was setting and that beautiful midwestern orange glow was starting to cast long shadows across the lush greenery and old stone buildings.

All of a sudden, a group of teenage-looking girls came running out of the bookstore's side doors.

“Are you Rudy?” one of them shouted. “Are you the real Rudy?! The man inside told us that you're Rudy Ruettiger.”

I thought about denying it. I wasn't really in the mood for any kind of attention. I just wanted to enjoy my cup of coffee. But these girls were so excited for some reason, I said, “Yeah. I'm Rudy.”

Well, you would have thought I was one of the Beatles in 1966. These girls started squealing and screaming. “Oh! I'm gonna cry. I'm gonna cry!” The reaction was all tears and giddiness. “Can I get a picture? . . . Can I give you a hug? . . . Mr. Ruettiger, I love your movie. It's my favorite!”

I didn't know what to say. “Thanks!” I said. “Here, sit down, sit down. What brings you girls to campus?”

There were about ten of them, ages thirteen to fifteen, and they were all there for a summer program on forensics. A science camp, basically, that was teaching them all of the principles the crime scene investigators use, just like on the TV show
CSI
.

They started asking all kinds of questions about the movie. They wanted to know what Sean Astin was like, and how we wound up casting him. “Did you know that Sean went back to college after we filmed
Rudy
?” I told them. They were all surprised by that. “Yeah, he had gone for a couple of years, but after the movie he went back and decided to finish his degree at UCLA.” They all thought that was real cool.

They asked about Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, who had both turned into really big stars over the years, and I explained to them how fulfilling my own dream of making a movie helped give them their chance to break into Hollywood. They thought that was pretty cool too.

It was strange to me, but these girls knew all kinds of details about the film, as if it were fresh in their minds.

“The part where your friend died—how did that really affect you?” one girl asked.

“When you lose a close friend who you've mentored with, you realize how life is so short,” I said. That's when they really started listening to me. I could feel their energy, and I started to tune in as they tuned in to me. A few more girls gathered around, and then some older girls in their late teens and early twenties who were camp counselors came over too.

The whole thing turned into a deep chat session.

One girl asked about the scene on the bench by the lake. “Did you cry 'cause you were so happy?”

“I did,” I said.

“I cry too, when I'm happy,” she said.

One girl hadn't seen the movie, but she knew all about it. “Oh! You're the one who couldn't play for three years, and then got to play, and made a tackle?” It was amazing that she knew the story without having seen the movie. How does that happen?

One girl said, “No offense, but I thought you were a lot older. I thought you had passed away.”

We all had a good laugh at that one.

I asked the girls where they were from. One was from Detroit. Another from Carlyle, Pennsylvania. One was from Michigan City. One from just south of Chicago, near Joliet. It was wild. These girls were from all over the country! And they all knew
Rudy
. So I asked where they had seen the film. Some of them saw it in school. One girl said it was shown in health class, which I thought was interesting. Some saw it at home; their parents showed it to them. A couple of them owned the DVD. Some had watched it on Netflix. One of the eighteen-year-old girls said she had been watching it over and over since she was five years old.
Five!

They all spoke about what an inspiration the story was, and I decided to share something that had happened to me just a few weeks earlier. I had gone to a Lakers game, and I was down on the floor before the game started and was introduced to basketball star Kobe Bryant. I didn't know if he'd even know who I was. But when I said my name, his eyes got real big. “Rudy? From the movie?” he said to me.

Turns out Kobe Bryant had watched
Rudy
when he was sixteen years old. He told me, right then and there, that the movie was what inspired him to get serious.
Rudy
is the reason he's in the NBA. He watched it over and over again through the years just to remind himself what was important.
Rudy
is the reason he's always the first guy at practice, working out longer and harder than everyone else, he said. He realized that if Rudy could make his dream come true, then a guy with his sort of talent had an obligation to work just as hard to get as far as he could in life. The girls loved that story!

“You've gotta go after your dreams, because you never know who you're going to influence,” I said. I was really getting pumped up now. “When I was trying to get into Notre Dame and to play football, I never imagined I would meet Kobe Bryant, or that he would be influenced by me. Who could ever imagine that? Heck, I never imagined I would meet
you!
But we meet 'cause you do something; you fulfill a dream.”

They all posed for cell phone pictures and started posting to their Facebook pages as I asked them to tell me what they thought the message of the movie was. This was sort of a test for me. I wanted to see if it was still getting through to this younger generation.

One girl responded without hesitation: “Keep going for your dreams.”

Another personalized her response. “It made me be confident and see that I could do anything I want to if I try hard enough.”

“Your movie reminds me of the slogan Notre Dame has,” one of the older girls piped up. “
Play like a champion today
.”

At this point, I realized that these girls were searching for something, just as I was searching for something. There was something in the air as the sun set. Some of that Notre Dame magic had made its way to the bookstore patio.

The girl from Detroit spoke up again: “People where I live, they loved that movie because you tried and you did everything you could.”

“Isn't that what America's all about?” I said.

One girl then looked right at me and said, “I love how you're as inspirational in real life as you are in the story.”

Phew. That one got me. With everything I had been through that year, it was all I could do not to well up with tears. I decided to jump right back into the message: “Girls, you ever look in the mirror and say, ‘I have a pimple today'?” They all laughed. “You ever look in the mirror and say, ‘I'm not that good-looking'? Well, you know what God sees? God sees nothing but beauty. That's it. You're fooled by these goofy people giving you goofy thoughts.

“The truth is you
are
someone,” I said. “The truth is, get rid of your goofy thoughts. The truth is, don't let someone influence what you want to do. You have that choice. That's the most powerful thing you have. No one is going to stop you from doing what you want to do but
you
, and that's the truth.”

One of the youngest girls was sitting close to me this whole time. She was the quietest of the bunch, listening very intently. For some reason I turned to her right in that moment and said four words: “You're awesome, little lady.”

She started crying. For some reason, right in that moment, she needed to hear those words. I don't know why. I can't presume why. This young girl needed that encouragement.

I nearly started blubbering too. This girl was about my daughter's age, and I know how hard it is for kids going through that awkward adolescent stuff, dealing with school and bullies and certain teachers who do the opposite of inspire and certain peers who do the opposite of inspire and even parents who do the opposite of inspire. I tried to pull myself together and keep talking without losing it.

“So, are you going to listen to someone who says to you, ‘You can't do that'? Is that the guy you're going to listen to? Are you going to listen to someone who says, ‘Here's why you
can't
do it,' or are you going to listen to someone who says, ‘Sure, you'll find a way'? Because the fact is, you already have the answer. It's inside of you. What's the answer? ‘
Do it
.'”