To you CFB experts, how 'real' was the movie 'Rudy'?

[msgkings322]

I know there was really a guy named that who walked on at Notre Dame yadda yadda. But at the end, did the real Rudy actually get in the game and make a tackle?

 

[belcherboy]

I know there was really a guy named that who walked on at Notre Dame yadda yadda. But at the end, did the real Rudy actually get in the game and make a tackle?

I found this on a Reddit page:


Rudy was a real person, but the story in the movie is at least half BS. There's a lot of dramatic license.

There was a real person named Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger who did transfer from Holy Cross after being diagnosed with dyslexia, then successfully walked on to the football team and played on Senior Day against Georgia Tech his final year before being graduated.

Basically everything else in the movie is embellished or fabricated for the sake of making the story more fun though.

Some major differences between the movie and reality:

1. Rudy wasn't the youngest sibling in a large family. He was the oldest.
2. He enlisted in the Navy after HS, and while he had jobs on campus at things like a camp /retreat counselor, his VA GI Bill Benefits paid for much of his HC/Notre Dame education. The movie chose to omit this.
3. His family (father included) was actually very supportive. His brother didn't steal his gf either.
4. He didn't have to sneak into the football stadium to sleep. He was actually dormed for a while in Moreau Seminary under a program for similar older students (on-campus dorms were age-limited, and as a veteran with a few add'l years work experience he was too old for on-campus housing) and later lived in an apartment in the JACC as an upperclassman.
5. The admissions storyline was mostly fabricated. His HS grades were so awful they said he would need 4 good semesters at Holy Cross first to even stand a chance at ND admission. After his dyslexia was diagnosed, he got tutoring and his grades improved, so he started applying for transfer anyway. Admissions was unconvinced, but when he finally had 4 semesters of good HC grades to show he was admitted.
6. He didn't actually sneak onto football managers without a ND student ID so he could paint helmets and such. Those roles are actually quite competitive and they don't struggle to recruit. You can even earn a scholarship this way.
7. He did, however, sneak into Bengal Bouts boxing tournaments as a HC student, which was where the "Rudy! Rudy!" chant actually originated. People thought it was hilarious that this stout Navy veteran was pummeling the crap out of 18-year-olds.
8. Although he was shorter, he was pretty stout and wasn't super undersized at 5'6" and 185. Sean Astin was a lot smaller than the actual Rudy.
9. He didn't lack in athletic abilities and was good enough to make the practice squad on his own merit. He wasn't just picked for his "heart."
10. Dan Devine was quite supportive of walk-ons and entirely amenable to the idea of dressing him and putting him in on Senior Day when it was proposed. The rest of the "turning in jerseys" scene never happened, and Devine was actually quite upset about it.
11. Rudy actually got in before halftime on a kickoff or punt (return? I don't remember...) before being put back in again in the final minutes.
12. If you check the archives, there was clearly no profile in either The Observer or Scholastic that prompted the student body to begin chanting his name.
13. He was carried off the field, but it was mostly as a kind of joke, letting the guy have his minute of glory after a sack that was borderline unsportsmanlike since the outcome of the game was no longer in question and GT was just trying to run out the clock. Joe Montana was a teammate, and said in interviews he was quite annoyed about how it was portrayed in the movie.