What Do You Think Of The Movie Rudy?

Yes, I’ve seen the movie Rudy and Rudy is kind of a double-edged sword. On the good side, everybody in the world knows about walk-ons at Notre Dame because the movie made it famous. On the bad side, it is kind of a derogatory term if you are a walk-on at Notre Dame, you get called a “rudy” and that essentially means, you’re not athletic and you don’t play. So, it’s not a great term to get thrown around. But, the first practice I went to at Notre Dame, I walked out on the field and I was instantly star-struck, of course. I am looking around the field and I’m like, “Wow, okay, that’s Jerome Bettis, that’s Rick Mirer, that’s Reggie Brooks, that’s Irv Smith, that’s Bryant Young, that’s Aaron Taylor, that’s Tom Carter, that’s Jeff Burris.” These are all guys that are going to end up being first-round picks in the NFL. We had talent all over the place. Once I’d gotten over that part, and found my way to where I was supposed to be, as a scout team offensive player, I remember standing there at practice one day and looking over at one of the fields and there was a strange tarping on the fence and there were some lights on the other side of the fence that looked odd. I asked somebody, I said, “What are they doing over there?” They said, “I don’t know, they are shooting some movie”. I said “Oh, really, what’s it about?” and they said, something about Notre Dame football. Nobody really knew at that point. So, I had just gotten there, and they are producing this major movie that everybody is going to have heard of in less than a year. A couple weeks after that, I was in the locker room after practice, and I was changing. I look up and I see this guy walk in and I immediately recognized him, and I go, “Oh, that’s Mikey from the Goonies movie, what’s he doing here?” Of course, it was Sean Astin, the actor, but, at this point, nobody knew him from anything else, at least I didn’t. I knew him as Mikey from the Goonies. He hadn’t become Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings yet.  I looked up and I was like, “what is Mikey from the Goonies doing in the locker room?”  I’m watching him walk across the locker room and he’s looking around and then he goes “Whoop” and looks right at me and comes walking right over to me and all I can think about in my head is, “Why is Mikey from the Goonies in our locker room and now he’s coming over to talk to me.” He walks right up to me and he looks at me and we’re about the same height and he goes, “Hey, are you on the team?” And I said, “Yeah, I mean I’ve only been here a few weeks but, yeah.” He goes, “So this is real, I could really be doing this?” I have no idea what he is talking about. I thought, I guess Mikey from the Goonies is going to walk on and be a teammate. I guess he is going to be on the football team. And he goes, “Man that’s great” and he hits me on my shoulder, and he walked off. I had no idea what this whole exchange was about. Until I found out later that he’s the guy staring in the movie called Rudy.