“No, no,” I said. “I'm the real Rudy. I lived the life that the movie was based on.”
It didn't matter. I had lost them right from the start. They weren't interested in anything I had to say because the setup was all wrong. They weren't primed to listen. They were primed to reject me from the get-go.
My speech was a flop. I lost track of what I was talking about. I lost the flow. It was just a disaster. I left that school defeated and questioning whether I was cut out for public speaking at all. But that feeling was short-lived. I knew I just had to practice. As with anything else in life, I had to find my groove. I had to stand up, dust myself off, and get back in the ring to keep fighting. If I couldn't do that now, then what good were my speeches anyway?
So I got back out there and did it again. And again. The phone didn't stop ringing. The power of the film led to lots of requests from all over the country. Corporations, schools, teamsâall sorts of people wanted me to come give them a pep talk or a motivational speech of some sort. The movie's power was simply undeniable. Slowly but surely, the more I did it, the more I realized I didn't have to give a perfect speech. I didn't have to be Zig Ziglar, you know? What I had to be, what the audience wanted me to be (when they were expecting to meet me and not Sean Astin, that is), was Rudy! The fact that I was a regular guy was the whole basis of what made my story powerful, and it was the same thing that would make my speaking engagements powerful.
I learned to get up there and just have a conversation with the audience. I learned to not be overwhelmed by the audience, not to look at the whole audienceâwhether it was ten people, five hundred, or five thousandâbut to look at individuals in that audience to get a read on whether or not my words seemed to be resonating. Getting them to smile was a big deal, of course. You make people smile, and you've got 'em. I saw that right away at our film premieres, like when I made that little joke about sneaking into the Rialto to watch
The Ten Commandments
. It didn't take much to make people laugh, I found. And most people who are attending a speech are really rooting for you. They want you to succeed. They don't want to be bored. They want to be entertained, and down deep, they really, really want to be inspired.
One of the clearest examples of that lesson, for me, came around because of an old connection.
Not long after the movie came out, I got a call from Barry Alvarez. Way back in the late 1980s, when he was an assistant coach at Notre Dame, we developed a relationship through the car dealership. His dream of becoming a head coach had come true, just like he said it wouldâhe was now head coach at Wisconsinâand he was well on his way to becoming a Hall of Famer.
“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 Bowlâand 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 beâthat 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.
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); and to seek out the paths that God might open up to them once they took a leap of faithâeven 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 siblingsâevery one of themâ 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 themâwithout exceptionâbecame 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.